US military commanders are apparently up to doing whatever it takes to further cloud an ugly, inevitable truth of a botched war and an even more botched war plan in rolling back history.
From the Washington Post:

The deployment of a company of M1 Abrams tanks, which will be fielded by the Marines in the country’s southwest, will allow ground forces to target insurgents from a greater distance — and with more of a lethal punch — than is possible from any other U.S. military vehicle.
The 68-ton tanks are propelled by a jet engine and equipped with a 120mm gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away.

Whoopee!

(Illustration found here).

The Post story also noted the use of the  tanks this late in the near-decade conflict could be seen as a “sign of desperation by some Afghans and Americans” in a failing operation, though one US military official enthused, “The tanks bring awe, shock and firepower,” the officer said. “It’s pretty significant.”
Don’t the words ‘shock‘ and ‘awe‘ upchuck some really, really bad memories?

The last two graphs in the Post piece, however, blows the cover off the whole shit-stick and reveals the dumb-ass disregard:

“Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?” a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.
Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs.
By making people travel to the district governor’s office to submit a claim for damaged property, “in effect, you’re connecting the government to the people,” the senior officer said.

WTF!
And these iron-clads use a massive shitload of fuel — at a real-time reality rate of $400 per gallon to get the gas into the country and into those war machines.
Once again — WTF.

As these keen military minds revive George Patton among the unwashed insurgency, US peoples are quick to note the Afghan war is bust: A new Quinnipiac poll shows American voters say 50 to 44 percent that the U.S. should not be involved in Afghanistan, the first time the independent survey has found more voters oppose the war.
And what about the Afghan national army itself?
Again the Washington Post via antiwar.com:

Observing the scene from the nearby shade, an American soldier reached a different conclusion.
“They’re [expletive] worthless,” he said.
“I’ve never seen them in any formation before,” he said. “They’re never in uniform.”
“They’re a joke.”

How much you wanna bet the ‘expletive’ mentioned above is the word, ‘fuckin’?
And dying for a ‘joke’ ain’t a bit funny.

And on top of all this stupid, dangerous operation, NATO is meeting today in Lisbon, Portugal, to asset the way things are going.
President Obama said last fall July 2011 was a draw-down date when he ordered a surge of US troops into Afghanistan, and a year later time has moved even further into the future and 2014.
Now that schedule is in reality, “an aspirational goal” and not any kind of deadline without regard to anybody but the US military brass.

George S. Patton slap somebody’s face, really, really hard.