Another lost opportunity for Decider George.
Even as he holds out a shocking, back-stabbing fig leaf to Iran, the original intent with the late-great Global War on Terror in Afghanistan is going to shit in a wire basket.

Just in the last few days, the situation on the ground there has quickly quick-sanded into a too-little-too-late kind of thing with the US-led coalition on the road to a major setback at best, and a full, pell-mell retreat at worst.
While US eyeballs have been focused on Iraq, and now are more-focused on the freakin’ economy and the freakin’ banks, the Afghan war has slowly deteriorated, bleeding the so-called ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the indigenous peoples completely dry.
As the developments worsen comes the modern military’s adage in handling an insurgency — If ya can’t beat ’em on the ground, bomb the shit out of ’em from the air.

And lately a number of weddings have been so interrupted.
Read tomdispatch‘s most-excellent analysis here.

And the killing of these indigenous peoples continues because there seems to no other way.
The Russians in their own version of the US-disaster in Vietnam ended up bombing the livin’ shit out of everything and everybody in Afghanistan before they packed it in and departed. They were there more than a decade.

Yesterday the plot thickened.
A US bombing raid in western Afghanistan killed more civilians, this time even tribal leaders.

• Dozens of Afghan civilians have been killed during aerial bombing by US forces in the western province of Herat, tribal elders say.
  They said an important tribal elder was among the dead in Shindand district.
  …
  They said a large number of civilians had been killed in aerial attacks from midnight until 1000 local time.
  There were also unconfirmed reports of demonstrations beginning against Afghan security checkpoints.
  …
  A Nato spokesman confirmed there had been an operation in the region of Parmagan village and said: “All indicators were that it had been successful with a number of insurgents killed and no reports of any civilian casualties.”

Afghans are pissed at the continuous “...no reports of any civilian casualties.”
In country, foreign troops are being regarded as villains.

• “Such acts provoke public hatred towards internal and foreign forces and force people to join the enemy who encourages them to carry out terrorist and suicide attacks,” said the state-run Hewad
  First, Afghan officials say, US aircraft killed 15 civilians in the northeast on July 4, then just three days later, hit a wedding in the east, killing 47, mostly women and children.
  “The Americans will soon face new resistance with new motives if they continue such operations and do not care even a little about the lives of the people,” the state-run daily Anis said.
  While the US military first of all denied civilians had been hit, then launched what is likely to be a lengthy investigation, most Afghans have already made up their minds.

Across the country, in northeastern Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters stormed a US outpost this past weekend, killing nine US GIs, NATO authorities reported on Wednesday a coalition withdrawal from the area:

• U.S. troops have pulled out of a remote outpost in northeastern Afghanistan, NATO-led security force said on Wednesday, three days after Taliban militants tried to overrun the base and killed nine U.S. soldiers.
  NATO played down the significance of the withdrawal, but Taliban militants are sure to claim victory in driving foreign forces out of the wooded valley, close to the Pakistani border.
  Taliban militants briefly breached the incomplete defences of the newly established base in the Wanat district of Kunar province on Sunday and hours of fierce fighting ensued that killed nine U.S. soldiers and many more insurgents.
  It was the biggest single loss of life for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2005.

And what did Decider George say about all this? — Of course, without wisdom or intelligence.
During a press conference Tuesday, he blubbered about how terrible terrorists are and how they kill innocents, but no sadness of those caught under a 500-pound bomb:

• “And they have no disregard (sic) for human life. And it’s really important we succeed there, as well as in Iraq.
  We do not want the enemy to have safe haven — unless, of course, your attitude is, this isn’t a war, so if that’s the case, it wouldn’t matter whether we succeed or not.”

The man’s a full-blown turd of the worse kind — Self delusional.