There needs to be a clear understanding of what is needed. Here are some suggestions:

The people in each village/town must be brought into the proposed scheme, the building of infrastructure, the rebuilding of economic endeavors, the removal of corrupt politicians and those who support the Taliban.

Don't try and IMPOSE central rulers over the regions, cities, towns & villages, this has been tried time and time again, a has failed miserably each time.

Let the community start participating in rebuilding itself & its economy, then let those who are willing to "actually" participate (not just pay lip service) have the bulk of the rewards for having so done, ie. train them to run the services, the council, the water treatment plant, collect the taxes, etc.

Those who decide to opt out of the process are in likelihood those who favor the return of the Taliban, this will leave them isolated.

The power is then vested in the hands of those who, lacking a vested interest in the status quo, assisted the rebuilding... So at a stroke, we have sifted the wheat from the chaff and rebuilt not only the town/village, but found the people to run it.

I agree, the police should be from other areas, at least to start with, and they should be trained either here, the UK or the USA. Their training should be undertaken by the AFP if done here and extreme measures taken to drive into them the consequences of corruption.

The poppy fields are not actually viable, unless for the production of illegal heroin, Tasmanian farmers grow a better product for less money. What they can grow is wheat, etc. which is what they grew under the Taliban. Those who refuse, can be paid for their farms and then forcibly evicted.

The idea is to slowly build the country into the country we NEED it to be, where there are people with too much to lose to allow for a return to the bad old days, but who are willing and able to defend their new-found prosperity, against both bandits and insurgents.

Custard and others
Most commenters don't seem to understand , “conditions on the ground”.

Consider this typical scenario:
-You are a poor peasant with a family to support.
-A far away government with little immediate local support, (dominated by foreigners).
-Are telling You to grow a cash crop that returns you say maybe $200 per year.

-You have a LOCAL war lord etc. *telling* your village to grow poppies at a guaranteed $1000 per year or else.
-The majority of the village are and they're doing way better than you....can you blame them?
-In many cases the nearest thing to law and order are the Warlords not the far away military.

It is hard for these "real battlers" (see the lowest level on MASLOW'S pyramid) to see the government as much more than a marauding Plague of crows .....
-They come, destroy the above means of survival,
potentially create a lot of death and mayhem,
make promises they can't keep, then fly off.

The war lord comes back and punishes those who are helpful to the govt
- helps those who don't.
The only answer in my mind is give the people something better and provide the means to defend it. They want the same as us order and predictability.

Keep in mind these are REAL SURVIVORS they will do what they HAVE to survive. They can't pick up and leave no body else wants them. Nor are countries prepared to support them properly.

If for example we started shipping very large living standard improvements to them. There would be a political backlash from the great unwashed public here. "We should help ourselves first", just look at the complaints for providing asylum seekers a reasonable start here.
So we waste Billions on the patching not the Millions on a Suite of solutions....it's politically easier.

It seems for people complaining about magic bullet solutions aren't doing so well either, and seem to be basing their assumption that if we shell out the billions needed to build up a country with virtually no valuable resources minus heroin and little prospects of starting industries to support much infrastructure, they're going to magically transform into a moderate, secular super-nice nation where extremism will magically disappear because it can't *possibly* exist in the absence of wealth (assuming we WILL be giving that).

On the assumption of course, that a foreign power than bombed them and stripped away the only form of order they ever had, is telling them they must forgo the one thing in the country that actually makes money to plant something WE like is going to be met with joyful gratitude for removing the government that WE didn't like.

Seriously, unlike most of you people who disagree I've actually put some more thought into this.
Without the Taliban governing Afghanistan we have had:
-A still extremist, now lawless country
-An increased heroin trade
-A diaspora of Islamic extremists looking elsewhere to set up shop
-Oh and 'nature abhors a vacuum' indeed- in this case, the absence of a country for extreme adherents of Wahabism. What now?

Seriously, stop trying to make something better of the situation- accept that we were wrong, we stuffed up, and our continuing colonialistic 'lets make them better' attitude is making us enemies and making the rest of the world less safe. Get out, let the Taliban take control, less of two evils (and let's be clear, there ARE only two solutions- the alternative is basically NOT doing it and hoping some idiotic scheme will work). Our efforts have only made the place much worse, and your response is we just aren't trying hard enough or paying enough.

I don't recall saying that the Army wasn't trying hard enough, I am asking what it can do better.

If the automatic response to removing the poppies is that the Warlords/Taliban enforcers come on down, then that is fine. Predictable responses = premeditated murder/ie. ambushes by the military.

Given that those who are going to suffer worst from the visit of the enforcers (from either camp) are much more likely to inform if it is their own neck on the line, the lines of communication have just opened.

Most of Afghanistan consisted of subsistence farming communities before this all started and probably will again once it is finished. They make no more from poppies than they do from wheat/rice, it is just that they have no choice in what to grow.

They are instructed to grow poppies by the Warlords/Taliban, who agree to take the entire consignment, often paying in advance. This way they get paid twice for the one crop and get away with it. That should stir some greedy little hearts.

It also ensures that the Taliban/warlords are caught out in the open, in force, when the time comes for them to punish the 'collaborators'... As the biggest problem to date is that they have only ever come out when they felt like it (ie. when it suited them), this would be a godsend to the ADF, the USMC, etc.

The restoration of the agrarian economy, is probably going to be the easiest part of the rebuilding. Provide seed & fertilizer, destroy ANY and ALL poppies & poppy seed discovered. Anyone with poppy seed, or found growing poppies after that is dealt with by the local government.

That part is simple enough, the difficulty is that we have aligned ourselves with some unsavory elements in order to expel the Taliban and there may be some unwelcome suprises in store for them. Ah well.

What are the signs of victory in Afghanistan?

1. Freedom for women (no male control).
2. Freedom of music (listening and producing).
3. Freedom of association between men and women.
4. Freedom of religion.
5. Roads safe to travel by ordinary, unarmed people.

I am in no position to discuss the tactics, but we should support and pray for the success of our soldiers who are bravely fighting for those most worthy goals.

Yep, thought so, many people here just want to think about what they can handle and don't bother to even read anyone else except the people that shoot the easiest two-sentence rants for them to deconstruct- anyone better is carefully avoided by these people.