The evolution of a NY Times article involving the US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry may indicate payback winds are gathering. Eikenberry’s communications to the Obama administration have challenged the very foundations of the options Obama has been unhappily considering. The Ambassador’s message to Obama, simply put, is been that the Afghan goverment is infested with corruption to the extent that it may be unable to function–regardless of increased American troop levels. Obama has not been satisfied with the options offered to him, and the timing of Eikenberry’s message was critical in causing Obama to push back against the various options presented to him by the Pentagon–all of which involve troop increases and further investment of time and resources.

An important NY Times article published last night reports all of this. The article describes not only the President’s struggle to determine a proper path for Afghanistan, it also details some of the the conflict among his advisors. Included in this description was a closed-door meeting between McChrystal and Eikenberry in Kabul.

The Times piece appears to have changed since publication last night. I assume changes to posted articles at NYT happen all the time, but this article now closes with the following two paragraphs–paragraphs I didn’t see the first time I viewed this story:

General Eikenberry, who holds degrees from Harvard and Stanford, has long been a controversial figure in the military, with some faulting his management style as high-handed.

The State Department’s inspector general is doing an investigation of the embassy in Kabul that has involved asking employees about General Eikenberry’s management style. But officials said the audit was routine, and focused on issues like the heavy workload of employees.

As if by afterthought, has there been additional information "provided" to the Times? Why the sudden negative focus on Eikenberry himself (as an ivory-tower "high-handed" bureaucrat who just happens be the subject to an audit by his bosses at the State Department). Where is this crap coming from?

Watch for unsourced smears against Eikenberry similar to those tacked onto this NYT piece–and if anyone knows how to view earlier, cached versions of news articles, I’d be very interested to confirm that the above graphs were added at some point after original publication last night.