While we gather in anticipation outside the White House door, putting up an ear to the Oval Office, straining to hear any bits and pieces of the conversation, trying to make out whether Stanley McChrystal said “I’ve compromised the mission” again, it’s worth considering just what that mission is. And while the chatterers and courtiers run their personality-driven readouts of this whole Rolling Stone blowup, I’m encouraged by the number of reports – mostly confined to the blogosphere – about the actual war effort, and the futility thereof.

If you have a much better memory than most of our media, you may remember the really big – in fact “decisive” – battle the US announced for the important Afghan city … oops, village … oh pardon me, collection of farms called Marja. Complete with a planned “government in a box,” Gen. McChrystal’s always [...]

A week or so ago, we were hearing a lot about how decisive the current surge over Marja in Afghanistan would be. Of course, we were hearing all sorts of things – including a lot of happy talk about how well things were going. This week we learn that the fight is not so easy with US forces still facing “strong resistance” even though the US/NATO/Afghan force is 15,000+ while the reported “taliban” presence before the attack was estimated at 400. US officers are now saying that the military component of the campaign will take at least a month. They have also told the Guardian that Marja is just a “confidence building” action leading to the new “decisive” battle which they are beginning to plan for Kandahar.