The U.S. Marine grumbled like a high school teacher beset with the burden of having to play hall monitor on his lunch break.
Bawling out a group of Afghan soldiers squatting in the dirt, he demanded, "Who’s smoking hashish around here? … We’re gonna find ‘em."
After finding a suspect, the Marine barked, "What kind of cigarette is that? Why are you throwing away your cigarette? Aren’t cigarettes worth a lot of money here? Hashish? … You smell this and you tell me that’s not hashish."
"It’s like having 26 kids to have to watch after – it really is," said the exasperated Marine.
Except this wasn’t high school, or even ROTC. This was Afghanistan, and the Marine was an embedded technical trainer (ETT) tasked with training Afghans so that they can eventually secure their own country. Forget initiation into the finer points of tactical operations – these Marines were having a hard enough time ensuring their wards had their helmets on correctly and weren’t quibbling over whether to leave hot tea behind.
"I give a f—k about your chai! I care about the mission," one Marine shouted to an apparently poky Afghan.
"I think if they introduced drug testing to the Afghan army, we would lose probably three-quarters to maybe 80, 85 percent of the army," said another ETT. The series of interviews, captured by reporter John McHugh for the Guardian newspaper, was broadcast online in March.
Fast forward 90 days to the most ambitious military campaign of the still nascent Obama administration: the July incursion of U.S. Marines into the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province. Afghan assistance still left much to be desired. The frustration of U.S. and British leaders was in full view, raising the question: where was the Afghan army?
