Jackson Diehl - Critical Mass in Afghanistan - washingtonpost.com

This report embodies a certain kind of embedded journalism, as well as stenography for the US military, but it does lay out some of the strategy that's going to be entailed in the US-led counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. And it also highlights how the US plans to bypass the central government and funnel aid to more cooperative (and competent? or pliable?) local authorities.

Again, it begs the question: What is Afghanistan supposed to be once this is all over? Or to borrow from Gen. Petraeus' famous comment about Iraq, "tell me how this ends."

Jackson Diehl - Critical Mass in Afghanistan - washingtonpost.com