In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, General Petraeus reiterated his anti-corruption push, in which he tells his troops to be careful where they spend their money. With the latest stories from DC that show folks like Blackwater/Xe, KBR, and other US contractors getting off the hook, you have to wonder if the strategy of “Do As We Say, Not As We Do” will ever work. And if it won’t, then why do we continue to spend money and lives to keep pursuing it?

Karzai Assails Contractors’ “Mafia” Ties & Their Links to Terrorism, Amanpour Ignores Elephant — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

The propaganda tour has failed – 6 in 10 Americans want an end to the war in Afghanistan. Will Obama stick to his timeline, or will congress be forced to take drastic measures?

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.

Karzai moves to banish private security contractors to embassy/foreign compound protection detail. Innocent Afghan citizens breathe a sigh of relief.

Exclusive, on-the-ground interviews obtained by Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project confirm what NATO forces repeatedly denied: U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan killed dozens of people in the Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23.

Appearing Saturday at the US embassy in Kabul, General David Petraeus spouted platitudes about “teams” and “missions” without ever stating just what mission it is that our team is attempting to carry out.

In an otherwise insightful and thought-provoking article on The Seminal blog entitled “Afghanistan: Has Karzai Already Joined the Taliban?” Josh Mull makes a grave mistake by suggesting that the United States recast its policies from war-making to nation building.

Afghan President Karzai and his brother distribute nearly all of the world’s Heroin. Karzai Heroin is now the leading cause of death for people under 30 in the Northeastern US, killing over 4,000 people annually in Massachusetts alone. — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

A US withdrawal does not mean abandoning the Afghans. Afghanistan suffers from too much foreign meddling, not a lack of it. And through all of it, the Afghans themselves remain completely helpless to the fate of their own country.