One of the great strengths of al-Jazeera English is how thoroughly they treat international policy questions. There's a way of doing a story about leaks as pure pageantry, and they avoided that pretty much altogether. I also like the idea of opening up the segment at the end to viewer comments a great deal.

If elements of the military community dislike the fact that it’s taking weeks for Obama to refine his Afghanistan strategy now, they’ll really dislike what will happen if he hastily orders a politically unsustainable escalation and the reins get pulled back by a dissatisfied Congress in a year or so.

Pakistan's Waziristan offensive is under way. Already, it appears, four troops have died. Map of the North West Frontier Province courtesy Omer Wazir