are iraqis and afghanis stupid?
Are Iraqis and Afghanis stupid? Slow? Learning disabled?
I’m not meaning to be offensive here, really I’m not. Rather, I pose this question because according to the Pentagon, it takes 13 months to train an American soldier. Thirteen months from the minute they enlist until we send them to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Our soldiers, sailors, reservists and Marines learn high-tech computerized war technology–that’s why it takes so long to train them. (One of the big arguments against a universal draft is that the training the U.S. military gets is too labor-intensive to waste on people who aren’t going to stay in the military. Of course that would also be a pretty solid argument against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but that’s another column.)
So, to review: 13 months to train an American soldier.
So why are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan? Allegedly the only reason we are still in either place is because we have to train the Iraqis and Afghanis to have their own military so that they can take care of themselves and protect against al Qeada and the Taliban and the drug lords.
We’ve been in Afghanistan for eight years and in Iraq for six years.
It would seem that either we have a serious communication problem (and perhaps should not have discharged all those gay and lesbian linguistics experts) or training soldiers really isn’t what we are trying to do in either place.
Which do you think it is? No doubt President Obama will tell us in his speech tomorrow night. You know, when he explains how he can win and that there really is an exit strategy.—VAB
