The concept isn't working...Why are we still training and advising?

File this under rant.

Advise and assist isn't working.  We've been following the "revised" COIN Manual for over a decade and still can't see the light at the end of the Afghan/Iraq tunnel.

So why are we still pursuing this flawed strategy?

Isn't it obvious to even people that aren't interested that this game plan has failed the test?

Yet here we are with no reassessment of the strategy, apparently no ability to change course and instead we're pumping more bodies into the meatgrinder.

The funny/sad/pathetic thing?  These are the same group of generals that hit deck right at the end of the Vietnam War.  These are the same people that swore to us that they would never involve the US in another hopeless war.

They've failed the nation, the troops and themselves.

If Trump really wants a shock and awe moment then the first thing he would do is to have a heart to heart with his Joint Chiefs and find out what the plan is (if they have one ... I kinda doubt it).  He would demand a timetable for victory and barring that he would demand that an exit strategy developed.

He would ignore calls of a power vacuum and end this drain of lives/treasure. If the JCS refuse then he should fire them in mass and its next guy up.  Additionally he should expect massive push back from the globalist, Neo-Cons and interventionist inside and outside the govt.

And then he should execute that plan ruthlessly.

Historians will look back at this time and call Afghanistan/Iraq the Vietnam Wars in the desert.  They will wonder why the generals didn't do better, but they will be alarmed at the public not caring.

Long short?  We failed.  Time to pick up our ball and go home.  Afghanistan/Iraq are on there own.