Is it just me, or does Gen. Stanley McChrystal's increasingly pathological obsession with "the people we seek to protect" -- Afghans -- to the exclusion of everything else, including the body parts of his own troops, begin to resemble the pathological obsession of another famous, albeit fictional, commander (whistling begins ... )? Key is the shared blndness to national interest and enemy strategy.

From the Washington Post today:

McChrystal is equally critical of the command he has led since June 15. The key weakness of ISAF, he says, is that it is not aggressively defending the Afghan population. "Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to protect. . . . The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves."

McChrystal continues: "Afghan social, political, economic, and cultural affairs are complex and poorly understood. ISAF does not sufficiently appreciate the dynamics in local communities, nor how the insurgency, corruption, incompetent officials, power-brokers, and criminality all combine to affect the Afghan population."

Notice what's missing (Islam).

Coalition intelligence-gathering has focused on how to attack insurgents, hindering "ISAF's comprehension of the critical aspects of Afghan society."

I'll tell you what hinders ISAF comprehension -- clueless Gen. McChrystal and all our see-no-Islam leaders, military and civilian, who are making a hash of US foreign policy on global jihad -- not to mention our troops's lives.