Last night’s Oval Office oratory: Barack Obama channeling Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush

With General Petraeus’ stop on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric now halfway over, it’s worth taking a moment to unpack the unchallenged, false assertions and implications he’s piled up thus far on his media tour. We decided to look into the claims he made about “oil spots” of “progress” during his interview with NBC’s David Gregory. Both claims were absolute fantasies, and the remaining journalists on Petraeus’ tour owe their viewers more rigorous skepticism than what we saw on Meet the Press.

Defense Secretary Gates wants to extricate himself and the president from the impending P.R. disaster shaping up around the flailing Kandahar operation set for this Fall. "I think it’s important to remember that Kandahar is not Afghanistan," Gates said in comments that appeared to play down a U.S.-led operation for control of the area, known [...]

An update on Marja and our failing efforts in Afghanistan.

A recap on the Dog and Pony show in DC and a bleak look at the Kandahar ‘processes’…!

A synopsis of Afghan news…

Isn’t it time to call what Congress will soon vote on by its right name: war escalation funding?

General Stanley McChrystal’s now infamous “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in” claim at the beginning of the Marjeh offensive has now proven to be false. Competing narratives seem to be emerging on whether McChrystal is to blame for making an overly optimistic claim or the Afghan government is to blame for being unable to live up to its obligations under the plan.

A lot is happening in Afghanistan while the MSM is busy chasing after the shiny Shahzad bauble…!

The major Operation for Kandahar finally has a name: Operation Omid, which is Dari for Hope…!