Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan - Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer opinion.

It is cold and wet on the vast and desolate grounds of the Kabul Military Training Center, ringed by mountains on the outskirts of the city. Here, Afghan officers backed by NATO mentors are training new recruits to shoot and care for their AK-47s.

Seventy percent of the new grunts are illiterate, although officer cadets have a high school education. But the motivation of these youths seems high, in a country where the Afghan National Army is a respected institution.

On the shooting range, trainee Mohammed Arif from Kandahar has no qualms about the possibility of fighting a fellow Pashtun who is a Taliban. "If he comes to destroy my country, then I will kill him because he is the enemy," he says...

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