What is needed in Afghanistan and Pakistan

CNN:

Defeating extremists and stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan will require a "sustained, substantial commitment," Gen. David Petraeus, the chief of U.S. Central Command, said Friday.

Afghanistan and Pakistan contain "the most pressing transnational extremist threat in the world," he told a House appropriations subcommittee, while expressing confidence that President Obama's strategy constitutes the type of commitment that is needed.

Obama last month announced a new plan for the region, calling for more U.S. troops, greater economic assistance, improved Afghan troop training and added civilian expertise.

Petraeus said Friday that although more military forces are clearly necessary, "they will not by themselves, be sufficient to achieve our objective."

"It is equally important that the civilian requirements for Afghanistan and Pakistan be fully met. To that end, it is essential that the respective civilian elements be provided the resources necessary to implement this strategy," he said, urging Congress to fully fund the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and the U.S. Interagency Civilian Response Corps.

Building the Afghan security forces will be critical to long-term success, just as it was in Iraq, he said.

Asked if helping Afghanistan become self-sufficient and building up its security forces would move more quickly than it has in Iraq, Petraeus said Afghanistan poses some unique challenges.

"In many respects, Afghanistan represents a more difficult problem set," he said. "It does not have a number of the blessings that Iraq has, in terms of the oil, gas, land of two rivers, the human capital that Iraq built up over the years, the muscle memory of a strong government, albeit one that was corrupted over time."

Afghanistan is landlocked, rural and has a high illiteracy rate, he said.

"These kinds of difficulties make Afghanistan very, very hard. We have seen that and we will continue to see that. That's why, up front, I've said this is going to take sustained, substantial commitment."

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If the State Department wants to hire a 64 year old lawyer to help them put a non Shari'a legal system in place they should send me an email. I also have vast experience at being a blogger and critic.

I think he has hit on some of the key problems in Afghanistan. The illiteracy is significant. Under the Taliban women were deliberately kept illiterate and many of the men were also illiterate. This has been a problem in just training Afghan troops who cannot read or write.

But the central problem in the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the religious bigotry of the enemy. That will not be overcome by pretending they are moderate bigots. Most admit they are not moderate anyway.

It appears that much of the Taliban activity so far this Spring has been on the Pakistan side of the border. I think they fear the additional troops the US is bringing in to Afghanistan and think an indirect approach is Pakistan will be more effective. We need to have a contingency operation for clearing our supply lines into Afghanistan through Pakistan.