Washington Post:
Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday offered an optimistic assessment of the war in Afghanistan, writing to his subordinates that coalition and Afghan troops in the past year "inflicted enormous losses" on mid-level insurgents and "took away some of their most important safe havens."
The three-page letter to the troops made many of the same points that U.S. military officials have offered for weeks: an improving situation in southern Afghanistan, where the bulk of U.S. troops are based; a relentless mission tempo to kill insurgent field commanders; and an overall weakening of the Taliban.
"Now, in fact, the insurgents are increasingly responding to our operations rather than vice-versa, and there are numerous reports of unprecedented discord among the members of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban senior leadership body," Petraeus wrote.
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Statistics gathered by NATO, as well as other organizations, show that violence rose to its highest levels last year, and U.S. military officials predict 2011 will be even worse. To the coalition, the Afghan government remains dangerously ineffective, and the Pakistan sanctuary for the Taliban's leadership is still secure. And many Afghans express frustration with the presence of foreign troops.
"I can tell you this very clearly: 50 percent of the people who are working with the Afghan government, their hearts are with the Taliban," said Munshi Abdul Majid, the governor of Baghlan, a province in northern Afghanistan where security deteriorated last year. "And this 50 percent feel the international community is not trustworthy and is trying to fool them."
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I am not sure why the post is using the discredited "violence" metric. Violence always goes up when you troops are on the offensive. I most cases it is our troops who are causing it by closing with and destroying the enemy. That is a good thing. Some in the media seem to think that having a walk in the sun without shooting or being shot at is some indication of how the war is going. That is only true after you have destroyed the enemy and showed him his cause is hopeless.
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