From Major Randy Schmeling, a 43-year-old Army National Guardsman who commands the American police mentoring teams in Ghazni, on the endemic corruption in Afghanistan:
Right now, there is no meritocracy here. It’s, “Hey, your sister has a pretty mouth — do you want to be a general?”
There’s nothing in this article to be surprised about if you’ve been paying even the slightest attention to Afghanistan. But you should read it anyway, just to remind yourself all over again of just what we’re up against there.
We have a new comment system! We are now using Coral, from Vox Media, for comments on all new articles. We'd love your feedback.