Contemplating the military objective of Kandahar, John Bernard has written an excellent essay at Let Them Fight pointing out, one more time, the mote in our leaders' eye, Islam, which no amount of COIN snake-oil can heal. He writes:

Again; there is no substantial difference between the government in Kabul, the civilian population and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not only is their religious ideology monolithic (shared and all encompassing), but they all share familial ties, tribal ties and a shared hatred of all things not Islamic. In Hershel Smith's new piece, he quotes the AP and their story on the shoveling-against-the-tide strategy about to be launched in Kandahar and the view of the people there versus our pie-in-the-sky understanding of them. From the story:

Haji Raaz Mohammad, a 48-year-old farmer from Kandahar, said he has never understood why the U.S. is trying to drive out the militants.

"I don't know why they are doing it," he said. "The Taliban are not outsiders. They are our own people."

So one more time; can anyone tell me why we still can't understand why trying to impress who we want to believe the enemy to be on them isn't going to change who they understand themselves to be? This is the very definition of insanity not the unbridled perseverance that the current administration and the collective would have you believe it is. Even General McChrystal himself admitted that the strategy wasn't going so well in a statement he now regrets, saying that Marjah was a 'bleeding ulcer'.

The truth of the matter is that the Counter Insurgency Strategy continuing - apparently unabated in Afghanistan is the acid, eroding the war effort that is now the cause of the nationwide 'bleeding ulcer'.