Unlike the Russians, who imposed a government with an alien ideology, you enabled us to write a democratic constitution and

Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghan Defence Minister, is having fun.  Now I won't challenge his assertion that Soviet Communism was an "alien ideology"--the fun comes with the easy assumption that free-market "democracy" is not also an alien ideology.  But Mr. Wardak knows his audience--an audience that believes implicitly Afghanis have no aspirations other than to become Walmart shoppers and debt slaves to BoA.  

Next the excuses in advance (in case the failure that is sure to happen, does happen):

we make the problem harder. ISAF is a conventional force that is poorly configured for COIN, inexperienced in local languages and culture,

 
What?  We needed to know something about the people we are trying to occupy?  How unexpected!  How unfair!  The Brits never did anything like that--I mean--who knew?  

Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces

That's the kind of thing commanders say when they have given up on tactical goals and are fighting their way out of an encirclement!  But maybe there are no tactical goals . . .  

we have operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to protect

 
Yeah, waging war on people does tend to do that, whether you are trying to "protect them" or no.  

security may not come from the barrel of a gun.

Hallelujah!  Breakout the flowers and beads!  Are we really hearing this from the same guy who just a few years ago was running death-squads in Iraq?

Better force protection may be counterintuitive;

 
There's that "force protection" again!  If the troops cannot protect themselves, what shall we do--send in the NYPD?  

it might come from less armor and less distance from the population.

This must be why we are running more of our missions out of Nevada using remote control aircraft.  

the objective is the will of the people

 For a military mission this has one meaning, for a diplomatic mission another.  But somehow this sounds like a mere paraphrase of the old Vietnam "winning hearts and minds" thing.  Which in fact turned out to mean putting as many of them in concentration camps as possible.  What could it mean this time around?  

the Afghans must ultimately defeat the insurgency

 It is up to our puppets to fight our wars for us--certainly we can not be expected to do it ourselves!

Obama's strategy to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda and prevent their return to Afghanistan have laid out a clear path

 
Ah!  Now I see the problem:  McChrystal does not know the difference between a goal and a strategy.  Maybe he does not know the difference between an objective and a tactic, either.  How did this guy get promoted out of Black Ops in Baghdad?  

The Fates are kind.