Convnetional battles as we know them are almost meaningless in the kind of war we are fighting in Afghanistan, unless lots of our guys get killed or we accidentally kill lots of civilians. Killing lots of insurgents doesn't really mean a whole lot. We do it all the time. We most certainly kill a lot more of them than they do of us. We do make an effort to go out and kill their key leaders, and we do a pretty good job of it. But all the really does is buy us time in the region of influence under...

I've been away for some time, and there is a logical explanation. I've been in Afghanistan. Well, I dropped off the board before then, but it makes for a good excuse to strike up a conversation.

In three months I've finally gotten a decent feel for what is going on here, and it's nothing like you could imagine. It's not war as my 18 years of experience, training, and six previous deployments know it. It's really not like any war the United States has ever experienced. I suspect...