Apollovet: Glad you are safe back in Canada. Great posts. I must start out by saying that it is quite interesting to compare your observations to the perspectives of some of the very senior types we bring in as guest speakers here at CFC. All the things that you identify as what we should be doing all seem to be the things that they say(in more general terms) we actually are doing. And yet, we see almost nothing in the media about Canadian reconstruction efforts. To a certain extent this can be blamed on "if it bleeds it leads", but yet there are other kinds of stories that do come out of Afgh via Cdn media (Timmy's got quite a bit of coverage, for example, and I saw a piece on Cdns training the Afgh fire service). So, maybe we really aren't doing enough significant reconstruction. I'm not there right now, (last there in 04-05) so I don't know. And, like Teddy, I am very loath to second-guess the folks on the two-way range (there's another dumb term...).
Still, it's pretty clear to me that fighting, while necessary (hopefully to a declining degree over the next few years) is not the panacea in the long run. In fact, there probably isn't a panacea for Afghanistan. It will probably live with factionalism and political violence to some degree for a long time. But then, so did the UK, Spain, France, Greece, Italy and a lot of other places we have long considered relatively stable. The fix, if there is one, IMHO is to have the Afghan people choose peace and stability most of the time in most of the country, until it really takes root, and (cynically) personal prosperity, comfort and a desire for a better life overcome the desire to pick up an RPG.
I also share some of your concerns from what I can perceive about the course of events there, but in a slightly different way. I believe that the combat ops that have been conducted thus far were all necessary, even if they were surprisingly different from what we were all expecting to see in 3BW (One report I read compared Panjwai to fighting in the Normandy bocage, only worse). I think that the CF (esp the Army) is doing its part, and probably much, much more. What is missing is a really concerted and well funded effort by the other two legs of the "3D" tripod": DFAIT and CIDA. Now, I am hearing more and more that these two are gradually becoming more organized and effective, but IMHO they are just as important as the troops: perhaps even moreso in the long run. We are not going to significantly change Afghan culture, and we should not bother. Instead, we need to give the GOA the tools and infrastructure to run the country. I agree fully with your bottom up approach to rebuilding and improvement, but it cannot be confined to that, IMHO, or we will build a headless creature with no nervous system.
However, I will add this. I am on side with those who are uneasy with what sometimes seems to be a focus on body count, terrain "taken" and saying things like "we have the Taleban on the run", etc. No doubt these things are all factual, at the instant they are said and as far as they go. But, sometimes I wonder how far they really go. I do not like the historical echoes I sometimes think I hear. At the same time I have to wonder how much is coming through a mirror clouded by the media focus of the moment, and how much is well-intended as being for "home consumption", but tends to create a triumphalist impression that has no useful place in counter-insurgency and nationbuuilding in the face of a determined, fanatic and patient foe.
Cheers