[NiteTrain]

So, I was at a shura today and asked the question, "How do you all as elders and leaders of your villages, view what we are doing and trying to do in your villages?" The answer was, "You say that you are here to help us and to remove Taliban from our villages...so we will let you continue to help us and then when you leave we will go back to what we know best." And our terps have stated that just because you offer something and the locals accept it it does not mean they area allied with you, actually willing to cooperate with you and damn sure DOES NOT mean they wont turn around and IED the road, shoot at you, or just give what you gave them to INS in the area.

You see, the thing about UW is that you have to have an attainable/winnable end result. One that is tangible in nature and not just ideology that can not be manifested because of improper planning, UNREALISTIC expectations, and lack of follow-through. You cant go into an area and give the villages everything they ask for as far as AID-PROJECTS without expecting..no..demanding something in return.

You can not create an ALP/VSO program, which is community policing on steroids, and not provide constant oversight and follow-through of the program. You train "SELECTED" villagers to take on the task of protectors of their respective villages, but where is the constant oversight. An SFODA split can not train, equip, and oversee a mass produced program like this and still run combat operations to create "white-space" in their AO. That is a man-power issue. What happens when ALP is left unchecked in a village? Do they take over the village? Do they join with the INS because they were with them all along and only wanted training and equipment? Do they start or continue bloody tribal wars now that they have weapons? Or what happens to these ALP forces when we leave. Who takes care of them then? Are the people anymore pro-GIRoA than they have been?

The bottom line question is...in the end did we fix the problem or cause a bigger problem? Somewhat like...give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, but teach him how to fish and he can eat for a lifetime....we are teaching how to fish with TNT. You really think that after awhile, the only use for it will still be fishing..and have we truly brought stability to this region?