THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

McClatchy takes a look at the hurdles facing the US military as it tries to make an Afghan army. We already know what the Pentagon thinks about this task. Now we can get a look at why they think that way.

The effort to enlarge and train the Afghan army is critical to the Obama administration's plan to defeat the Taliban and al Qaida, pacify much of Afghanistan and begin to withdraw at least some U.S. forces in 2011. Success, however, is far from guaranteed: The Afghan military remains plagued by corruption, ethnic rivalries and illiteracy, and by its almost complete dependence on American logistical and intelligence support...

..."We have recognized that the military we're building here . . . is different from a Cold War military," said Col. Dennis Brown of the Georgia National Guard's 48th Brigade, who oversees much of the training.

The few Afghan soldiers who learn to fire artillery shoot only at targets they can see, as opposed to those 10 miles away, and the Afghan army has few tanks.

"In this terrain, big heavy vehicles don't do well," said Brown, from Marietta, Ga., a lesson the U.S. is learning for itself as it replaces its heavy Mine-Protected Ambush-Resistant armored vehicles with lighter, more agile off-road versions.

Afghan soldiers are schooled in urban combat, in storming the home of a suspected insurgent and in reacting to the improvised explosive devices that are the insurgents' deadliest weapons.

Strange that they are schooled in urban combat, given the number of cities in Afghanistan. But this next part should really give you confidence in the Afghan Army's chances.

About a year ago, the Americans stopped issuing the Afghans Soviet-designed AK-47 automatic rifles in favor of the NATO M-16, a rifle that's more accurate but less tolerant of dirt, dust and water.

The change may seem to be a minor one, but the AK's reputation for functioning best when it's set on full automatic and spraying bullets isn't well suited to a counterinsurgency campaign that's trying to teach fire discipline and minimize civilian causalities.

I hope they teach the Afghans how to clean their rifles really fast under fire from those AK's that stop for nothing. Without that everything else is just a waste of time.