I asked him about the notoriously corrupt and incompetent Afghan National Police whose training has been the responsibility of German NATO troops. They are now the focus of a massive American training effort, but cynics point out that Westerners have been trying to train them ever since we got there. “It’s not rocket science. You pay them enough, you live with them in the districts, and you mentor them.”

Adams is more perturbed by the administration of justice in Afghanistan. Like every other American officer I have met in three embeds, he has seen suspects caught red-handed with IED components released from jail when someone was bribed.

“The legal system is a big problem. It’s a lawless system based on power and money. We’ve never done a comprehensive reform of the judicial system and we’ve been here seven years! If you want to reform it, you put a court house and an American mentor in every province. We came to Afghanistan and we have certain responsibilities to establish government and services. Look what the US Navy did after World War Two in the Pacific Islands Trust. We put administrators there and a legal system and we eventually turned it over to the locals. It’s a pretty good little government now, sixty years later. “

As I wrote in a recent article, the situation in Khost does not look as rosy now as it did when Commander Adams left. Two schools have been burned in Sabari, Khost’s most volatile district, since April, while none were burned in the previous fifteen months. Five American soldiers were killed by IEDs since April, and just two in the previous fifteen months.