Afghan Army recruits exposed as Afghan sympathizers

In a story that might as well be called  A slow day at Reuters  the news agency spins an entire article out of the self-evident ruminations of a conveniently anonymous “senior Afghan defense official”.  (Afghan forces face threat from within by Michael Georgy)

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan must act quickly to tackle infiltration of its security forces or another fatal attack on Western forces could undermine ties with NATO, a senior Afghan defense ministry official said on Wednesday, in a rare admission of the threat within.

Act quickly? Who is this guy kidding? We’ve had over ten years to get this right. Now is not the time to invoke the word “quickly”.

"We must make great efforts to prevent infiltration. This is a challenge for us," the official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified because he did not have the authority, told Reuters.
"It's a very serious matter."

It’s been a very serious matter for ten years, Officer Anonymous. It’s obviously not a challenge you’re up to.

The Ministry of Defense official said the large size of the Afghan army and police -- about 250,000 -- made it difficult to stop infiltration.

Ah! So that’s the problem; the large size of the Afghan security forces.  And here I’ve been thinking the problem is that the Afghans don’t like being occupied. But wait, Officer Anonymous has a plan:

"Our intelligence agencies will have to work on tapping phones and monitoring people's movements," said the official. "The bigger the force gets the harder it will be to fight infiltration."

Well, that’s rather unpleasant.  Seems like we’ve given up on leaving behind a free society. In fact, it sounds a lot like a police state.

By the time we leave we’ll have those Afghans pining for the tender mercies of the Soviet Empire.