Gains in Afghan Training, but Struggles in War

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/world/asia/13kabul.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 10:00 AM
Subject: re: Gains in Afghan Training, but Struggles in War
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   While the U.S. media were all atwitter in 2007 over "the surge" in Iraq, general Petraeus' strategy was balkanizing the armed forces there. The creation of the (all Sunni) "awakening councils"  simultaneously sucked Sunnis out of the national army, making that in effect a Shiite sectarian force. These two are now poised to tear Iraq apart as soon as the U.S. moves out.  Is this the model that general Petraeus is now bringing to Afghanistan? It succeeded in suppressing the daily deathtoll in Iraq; it is the long-term cost of a renewed civil war in Afghanistan that should concern us.

Barry Levine