So in 2013 Vice released a documentary on the deplorable state of the Afghan police and army even as the Obama Administration was trying to draw down US military commitment to the country and the war was fading from the news cycles, called This Is What Winning Looks Like. It's overall pretty good. There's a couple standout segments for me. The first is about halfway through, when the US ambassador and British deputy ambassador fly into a high-risk rural zone in helicopters with some Afghan government suits and a heavy escort, have a (photo op) briefing with the local US advisers, have a nice dinner with their elite friends, hear what they want to hear, and then spout some completely vapid platitudes to the cameras as they fly back out, having learned absolutely nothing about what's really happening on the ground.

The second is when a US advisor named Major Steuber - who the documentarians have been following through much of the film because he's blunt and honest about the challenges and setbacks facing this efforts - just goes on a quiet rant about all the various logistical problems that all add up to making all their efforts completely ineffective. It's a great sequence that goes to show just how much of a hollow house of cards American "nation-building" really is. The sequence starts at this timestamp, if you'd rather watch it. But I thought I'd transcribe it too.

Steuber: We've built this [patrol headquarters] here, you know we've got four towers and a generator and we've got a pump and gates and concertina wire. But, uh, [knocks on a fuel tank, it rings completely hollow] it's empty. There's no fuel here. And because of that, because of this simple logistical need, they can't get out. They've got 34 patrol bases from the southern Green Zone all the way to the northern Green Zone that they can't get out to. If there's anything that's out there that's going to really jeopardize the security here, it's not going to be a lack of fighting well. It's going to be something as simple as this: not having any fuel to be able to get anywhere.

S: Where the fuel comes into is Lashkar Gah, which is generally a two-hour drive away, and the southern part of the southern Green Zone there, known as the Page Area, is still controlled by the Taliban. SO you can't get a fuel truck up here. It's just too dangerous for them to bring that much fuel to try and come up here and refuel their tanks [and vehicles]. So what they do is they have to sell the fuel down there in Lashkar Gah. And they sell the fuel, and any time you start selling fuel or selling those types of things, you open the door for corruption to be able to enter into the process. And unfortunately this particular PHQ used to get about 20,000 liters every month. And the spigot has literally been turned off on them.

Documentarian: When the Afghan government announced that it was going to stop sending fuel down here they gave a figure of how much was stolen. How much was it?

S: I don't remember the number. It's nearly one million dollars worth of fuel. So whatever a million US dollars will buy in fuel.

D (in studio with Producer): The government in Kabul are saying that since the police are stealing so much fuel, we're no longer we're no longer going to give it to them. But there was a big fight the night before, and they couldn't get to it, because they had no petrol. And the thing is they just assumed that the Marines would bail them out and give them their petrol, which the Marines are now saying "It's not working like that anymore. You are on your own now."

P: So they've been stealing it for years and getting it off the Americans, and now the Americans have cut them off.

S: We had a long discussion with Sergeant Matine today about how somebody goes about getting a commission within the [Afghan National Police]. He said it costs about fifty thousand afghani, or about a thousand US dollars to be able to get the bribes paid in Lashkar Gah. And then it's another four thousand US dollars to get bribes paid within MOI in Kabul, to be able to get them into the academy. So, in order to become an officer, just become a basic lieutenant here, it costs five thousand dollars. So that's quite a steep price for an Afghan.

D: These are big issues. You think they can be resolved by the time we leave?

S: Um...no. No, not by that timeline. These are serious logistical issues. And the difference being that other militaries have educated people that are working very complex systems. And this is a very complex system. This right here, this generator is a very complex piece of machinery. They don't have the technical know-how to be able to operate this and run it. They don't have the systems or the operational know-how to be able to get fuel through a distribution center to be able to fill up this tank. I only have basically five months to teach them how to do this stuff. And then the next team's gonna to in, and then they're gonna learn the [Area of Operations] for another month. And then they're going to have their time here driving the bus, so to speak. And they still have to learn all this process and how it goes. So our actual amount of time that we have contact with them to be able to one, understand their system, and then to coach them through it and help them be able to request the supplies and be able to have a functioning logistical section, it's a complicated task for anybody. And it makes it even more complicated when you have a police force whose officers can't read or write. They can't communicate on paper, and I mean, if everything's done by cell phone there's no record-keeping. The system becomes wide open for corruption, exploitation.

S: I mean you look up on the building right there you can see the solar panels that are up there. But when you go up there and look at the solar panels, you see they're not really connected to anything. And when you ask them, "Well, where does this go? Who put this in here?" They can't answer those questions. They don't know how it works. And I've got policemen on my team. I've got an administrative officer. But I don't have any solar panel experts to be able to help them fix that out. So it's left to guys like myself and my team to try and figure out how to hook up solar panels and tie it into an electrical structure at a PHQ.

D [in studio]: The whole policy is designed as if everyone was educated, literate, there was a permanent police force there for years, as if the Taliban were no longer a problem, as if everybody wanted little girls to go to school. And it's all a fantasy for ten, twenty years down the road. None of the things that need to be in place now are anywhere near in place.

S: You know, that antenna right there, every time I walk by it, I think, if that's not a symbol for what we're trying to do here, I don't what is. I mean, it's a functioning radio tower. It's standing on its own. It's twisted and bent and held up with strings. But it's there, and it works. And hopefully it'll still be there after 2014.

D [in studio]: Pretty much every day there was a major blow to Major Steuber. Something really bad happened that he hadn't seen coming. In this case, there was a deputy police commander who he was sure had tortured detainees and had chai boys [child prostitutes] himself that everyone thought had been retired - y'know, politely fired. Suddenly, he appeared again on the base.

S: Anytime you think you've got this place figured out, something else'll come up around the corner that you weren't expecting. I had been assured by the DG, I had been assured by people at provincial [government] that that guy was going to be gone, that I wouldn't have to worry about him, that he was going to be prosecuted for crimes against the people of this country. But he's still here. Although he looks a bit more humble than he was a few days ago, he's still here. And I don't know what I'm going to do about that...

D: How does it work when people have very serious evidence stacked up against them and seem to somehow slip back into positions of power?

S: ...Um...I don't know. I don't know. I mean, the case on that guy is pretty open and shut, if you ask me. But apparently, somebody at MOI, somebody at provincial didn't think so, so he's back. I guess money talks...

I cut out a short part near the end where Steuber expresses some faint hope at how the district commander, Ghuli Khan, is back at the headquarters, saying how he might not be a saint, and might be of questionable competence, but he at least tries, and that's something. The documentarian then explains at the studio that a few weeks after the documentary was filmed, Ghuli Khan was unceremoniously fired from his post and replaced with an illiterate 24-year-old kid who knew the right people to pay in the provincial government.

This transcript ran long, so I'll cut it here and post a reply with an excerpt from The Shock Doctrine the contrast with this on how American "nation-building". Klein describes it in a way that struck me viscerally, and it when you pair it with little scenes like this one a whole picture of corruption and incompetence comes together.