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"Behind the scenes of the "war council." The New York Times has a fascinating, behind-the-scenes story about the administration's struggle to develop a plan of attack. The story quotes highly-placed sources around Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, et al. The most interesting revelation? GWB himself may actually be calling the shots."

"Afghanistan policy, like Vietnam policy before it, has taken on a life of its own, impervious to ground truth. The simple reality is that "peace talks" with the Taliban have no chance whatever of a positive outcome from the perspective of U.S. policy. Just as it did in Vietnam, the United States has been fighting the wrong war in Afghanistan with the wrong strategy from the very beginning. "

"The distinction of being a "failed state" is inarguably damning, but the 12 indicators factored into this determination highlight how complex it is to measure the weakness of states. A wide range of issues -- wars, hunger, brutal dictatorships, child mortality, economic failure, mass epidemics, political infighting, and the devastating aftermath of natural disasters -- push countries to the brink of failure, or right over the edge. "

Afghanistan is the 7th worst failed state in the world almost a dozen years after the US invasion and the American taxpayers' trillion dollar price tag.

"The Afghan central bank's efforts to curb the exodus of money abroad are bearing fruit...The money flow-part of it suspected by U.S. and Afghan officials to be stolen foreign aid and proceeds from the drug trade-undermines the country's economy just as foreign forces depart. The cash flight also raises Western concerns about Afghanistan, already the source of most of the world's illicit opiates, becoming a global money-laundering center. "

"The conclusion is inescapable that the Pakistan Army protected bin Laden and recently decided to give him up, rather than sacrifice the Army's relationship with the US. The terms are not known as yet, but there certainly is a trade in which bin Laden was sacrificed. The trade might involve an end to US drone attacks across the border, which humiliate the Pakistan Army, or a new coordination regime for drone attacks into Pakistan."

"Everyone knows a bit about the failed U.S. efforts in Afghanistan to win the hearts and minds of the people and to install a stable government, but in historian/journalist Doug Wissing's upcoming book, "Funding the Enemy: How U.S, Taxpayers Fund the Taliban," the stark details are laid bare. Wissing spent months in the country with U.S. soldiers and conducted hundreds of interviews. His conclusions are revelatory and scandalous. "

"At least one in seven Afghan soldiers walked off the job during the first six months of this year, according to statistics compiled by NATO that show an increase in desertion. Between January and June, more than 24,000 soldiers walked off the job, more than twice as many as in the same period last year, according to the NATO statistics. In June alone, more than 5,000 soldiers deserted, nearly 3 percent of the 170,000-strong force."

"As the sound of automatic weapons and rockets died down, hopefully not to resume soon in Kabul, the city went into the night without knowing the final outcome of today's battles. Earlier during the day, Fabrizio Foschini and others at AAN could only listen to the sound of it coming through the wind, and hope that none of their friends were harmed. Now, as evening falls, it is time to draw a preliminary picture."

"In the most direct assault since the American Embassy opened here nine years ago, heavily armed insurgents wearing suicide vests put the embassy and the nearby NATO headquarters in their cross hairs, showing the Taliban's ability to enter even the most heavily fortified districts in the country. "

"President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 "surge," by the end of next summer, according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision. These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama's military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public."

The only people thinking long-term appear to be the Taliban. "The Americans are going and the Taliban need the people's support, so they are trying to avoid attacks that result in civilian casualties," said Noor Agha Mujahid, a member of the Taliban shadow government for Kandahar province, where he oversees operations in a rural district. "After 2014 ... it will not take a month to take every place back.""

"Now comes a decidedly contrary point of view. It's from Douglas A. Wissing, author of the just-published Funding the Enemy: How U.S. Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban. After spending time with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, he's come to the conclusion that the U.S.-led effort there is flagging, if not already doomed. "

"On May 20, 2010, General Stanley McChrystal, then the American commander in Afghanistan, referred to the operation in Marjah, Helmand-an operation earlier touted as a potential turning point for U.S. Afghan counterinsurgency (COIN)-as a "bleeding ulcer." [1] Immediately, we were reminded of a similar expression from an earlier Afghan War. On February 1986, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev speaking to the 27th General Congress of the Communist Party posited that the Soviet war in Afghanistan had become a "bleeding wound." Was McChrystal's comment just an unfortunate choice of words or a harbinger that the United States faced a Soviet-style disaster in Afghanistan?"

"As the media frantically investigates the alleged improprieties of the U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, generals Petraeus and Allen, is this brouhaha distracting us from the real question: Have these generals been effective? Have any of the eleven U.S. commanders over the last eleven years been effective?"

"WASHINGTON: A congressional oversight body has sent a letter to the US State Department, saying that some American-funded companies and individuals are actively supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan. In the letter, which was also copied to the US Agency for International Development, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction urged the US government to immediately stop disbursement of federal funds to these companies and individuals."

"Now, a new book by award winning, independent journalist Douglas Wissing, chronicles how the US has in effect, funded both sides of its war in Afghanistan. In "Funding the Enemy: How US Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban," Wissing establishes a shocking pattern of policies in the Afghanistan war, and their consequences"

"Another lucrative source of income has been the foreign funding of aid and development projects. Estimates of Taliban income from contracts funded by the United States and other overseas donors range from 10 to 20 per cent of the total, usually by the Taliban agreeing protection money with the contractor or demanding a cut," the report said.

"Transcending its traditional Pashtun base, the Taliban is bolstering its influence in the central-eastern provinces by installing shadow governments and tapping into the vulnerabilities of a central government crippled by corruption and deeply dependent on a corrosive war economy. Collusion between insurgents and corrupt government officials in Kabul and the nearby provinces has increased, leading to a profusion of criminal networks in the Afghan heartland."

"There is no doubt that successful peace talks would be the best possible outcome of the Afghan conflict for everyone involved. History is not, however, filled with best possible outcomes. Far too often, the parties involved in peace talks continue to pursue their own interests in any way they can and peace talks become little more than a cover for prolonged struggled or become a weapon in the hands of the most skilled side."

"The Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a report Wednesday looking at U.S. assistance to Afghanistan.... The Senate report called for our aid to Afghanistan to be far more sustainable, while questioning whether many of the programs the United States has conducted under the broad banner of "stabilization" have actually made Afghanistan more stable or secure."