In a sign of how well things are going in Afghanistan, NATO and US troops are designating guards for any time they come into contact with the Afghan security forces they’re supposed to be training.

As we continue to get bad news from Afghanistan the American people have turned sharply against the war in the past few months. A new poll shows nearly 70 percent the American people think we should no longer be fighting the conflict.

The International Crisis Group has a new report out showing that the so-called reconciliation talks with the Taliban are actually going nowhere, and that civil war could result from a US continuing to lead those talks. The think tank believes that responsibility should shifted to the United Nations.

Three Afghanis and three Iraqis allegedly tortured by the US military at detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan are proceeding with their case despite having the their case dismissed and upheld by an appeals court in November of last year. The ACLU is petitioning an international court set up by the Organization of American States to pursue their claims.

Being the Americans that we are, we have focused on Staff Sergeant Robert Bales and his mental state rather than the 16 Afghan civilians he killed, all of whom had names too. But indulge me for a moment to address one aspect of Bales’ mental state. It turns out that he had a mortgage problem. And as such, he probably was a victim of a violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

It appears that the US is negotiating with two heads of state. There’s the Hamid Karzai who publicly lambasted the Americans as “demons,” accuses them of “Satanic acts,” and equates the presence of US forces with the Taliban. Then there’s the Karzai who, behind the scenes, pliantly offers permanent bases to the Americans.

Sounds like a plan — we could use one of those.

Are the lies that have to be told to get these wars going a necessary part of the process of stirring up weak souls’ emotions for the truly necessary and noble work of war? Are we all, each and every one of us, wise and knowing insiders who must tolerate being lied to because others just don’t understand? This line of thinking would be more persuasive if wars did any good that could not be done without them and if they did it without all the harm. Two intense wars and many years of bombing and deprivation later, the evil ruler of Iraq, and former U.S. ally, Saddam Hussein is gone, but we’ve spent trillions of dollars; a million Iraqis are dead; four million have been displaced and left desperate and abandoned; violence is everywhere; sex trafficking is on the rise; the basic infrastructure of electricity, water, sewage, and healthcare is in ruins (in part because of the U.S. intention to privatize Iraq’s resources for profit); life expectancy has dropped; cancer rates in Fallujah have surpassed those in Hiroshima; anti-U.S. terrorist groups are using the occupation of Iraq as a recruiting tool; there is no functioning government in Iraq; and most Iraqis say they were better off with Saddam Hussein in power. We have to be lied to for this? Really?

In the wake of the miseries we have inflicted on the people of Afghanistan over the last 10 years, including the recent massacre, President Obama said Tuesday that he met with, and has extraordinary confidence in, General John Allen, the commanding general. We kill Afghanis so routinely that they no longer take to the streets when after a massacre, and we make stupid mistakes, like bombing weddings and insulting their religion and their sense of honor. But, the President trusts the generals in charge.

President Obama vowed to keep to his exit strategy in Afghanistan, despite the recent tragedies, including the massacre of 16 civilians in Kandahar by what the military says was a lone gunman. Like Nixon on VietNam, he believes the US can have an honorable exist.