Patrick Cockburn in the Independent.

Pictures of prisoners being tormented in Abu Ghraib led to a tidal wave of revulsion against the US occupation of Iraq. The release of the vast archive of US military documents on Afghanistan is not likely to have the same explosive impact, but the sheer nastiness of the conflict is vividly conjured by the cumulative effect of thousands of uncensored reports from the frontline. The "Afghan Files" explain why the Kabul government is getting weaker, despite the fact that the US now has over 90,000 troops fighting 28,000 Taliban at a cost of $300bn (£190bn) over the last nine years.

Guardian report.

The Guardian has learned that while the American government is still officially resistant to the idea of talks with Taliban leaders, behind the scenes a shift is under way and Washington is encouraging Karzai to take a lead in such negotiations.

"There is a change of mindset in DC," a senior official in Washington said. "There is no military solution. That means you have to find something else. There was something missing."

James Denselow in the Guardian.

In 2009 the head of the army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "A high number of deaths inevitably makes you question what we are doing, how we are doing it. The conclusion one has to reach is, going right back to basics on this, that this mission is really important." Yet Dannatt is guilty of a moral triangulation that has typified the avoidance of a real audit into Afghan deaths.

Indeed, the constant repetition of the British death toll and fiscal expenditure is part of the "blood and treasure" argument that, in a country that supports its soldiers, places a firewall in front of any real debate on the war itself, typified by the consensus during the recent election campaign.

William Dalrypmle in the Guardian.

Since then the nature of Karzai's plans have become clearer: it has emerged that the head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, has secretly been visiting Karzai; on Monday General Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army, will arrive in Kabul, presumably to confirm whatever deal has been agreed. It seems the Pakistanis are encouraging an accommodation between Karzai and the ISI-sponsored jihadi network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, which would give over much of the Pashtun south to Haqqani but preserve Karzai in power in Kabul. The US has been party to none of this, and administration officials are apparently surprised and alarmed.

Craig Murray writes.

General Stanley McChrystal has tendered his resignation (not necessarily accepted) as the rows about his crazy surge and plans to make Jalalabad a second Fallujah spill out into the public domain.

[...]

UK Special Envoy Sherard Cowper-Coles - who is less keen on killing people but believes we should occupy Afghanistan for at least a generation - has been sent away on extended leave to lie down for a few weeks in a darkened room.

New York Times report.

American taxpayers have inadvertently created a network of warlords across Afghanistan who are making millions of dollars escorting NATO convoys and operating outside the control of either the Afghan government or the American and NATO militaries, according to the results of a Congressional investigation released Monday.

The investigation, begun last year by the House Subcommittee for National Security, found that money given to these Afghan warlords often amounts to little more than mafia-style protection payments, with some NATO convoys that refused to pay the warlords coming under attack.

Craig Murray writes.

The 300th British soldier killed in the Afghan War died today. The poor fellow survived for eight days before giving up in a Birmingham hospital. His injuries must have been appalling and that should remind us of the thousands of British soldiers maimed who did not die, some of whom sometimes wish they had.

Afghan casualties are, of course, very many times higher, with the additional horror that at least six Afghan civilians have been killed for every Afghan fighter.

We immediately have David Cameron and Liam Fox spewing out the standard propaganda about the occupation of Afghanistan making the world a safer place. This is quite simply a ludicrous proposition, and one to which the security, military and diplomatic establishments do not subscribe.

Guardian report.

Britain's special envoy to Afghanistan, known for his scepticism about the war in the country and his support for opening talks with the Taliban, has resigned from his post just a month before a critical international conference in Kabul.

[...]

A top diplomat in Kabul said Cowper-Coles had increasingly come to believe that "sod-all can be done" about turning round the fortunes of the nine-year war.

Guardian report.

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says it plans to release a secret military video of one of the deadliest US air strikes in Afghanistan in which scores of children are believed to have been killed.

[...]

The video could prove to be extremely embarrassing to the US military and risks weakening Afghan support. The US said it was targeting Taliban positions when it used weapons that create casualties over a wide area, including one-tonne bombs and others that burst in the air. But two US military officials told a newspaper last year that no one checked to see whether there were women and children in the buildings.

Daniel Tencer on Raw Story.

So why is this news now? To many, the story's timing suggests a Pentagon public relations campaign designed to extend public support for the war with the hope that, in time, Afghanistan may be able to raise itself out of abject poverty.

Juan Cole writes.

The report that geologists have found $1 trillion in mineral wealth in Afghanistan is less important than it seems. That Afghanistan has minerals is not in fact news. But none of the sort of research that would be necessary to place a value on them has been done, so no one actually knows what they are worth of if they are worth anything after expenses.

The US will likely end up spending $1 trillion destroying things in Afghanistan.

So even if the whole benefit of the minerals went to the US, it would be in the hole.

Craig Murray writes.

Yesterday Maxim Bakiyev, son of the recently ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was arrested in the UK when he arrived at Farnboro in a private plane.

[...]

It is interesting that the specific count of corruption cited relates to Pentagon contracts given to Maxim Bakiyev for the supply of the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan. This appears to be the standard US modus operandi for bribing dictators in Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, the US has given massive supply contracts to dictator's daughter Gulnara Karimova.

This is yet another ill effect of the Afghan war - the increase in corruption and the personal reward of dictators by the USA. Is the Pentagon exempt from the reach of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the United States?

Guardian report.

Pakistani officials have denounced claims by a British researcher that President Asif Ali Zardari secretly met with Taliban insurgents two months ago to assure them of his support and "friendship".

"This is a nonsensical report; it's absolutely wrong," said presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar. "There has been no secret contact, no secret meeting. That would go against everything we stand for."

Guardian article. The LSE report referred to is here (PDF).

Pakistani intelligence is so deeply involved in the arming and funding of the Afghan Taliban that it holds a seat on the militant leadership council and has sent the president, Asif Ali Zardari, to make prison visits to captured leaders, a report by the London School of Economics has said.

Researcher Matt Waldman said Pakistani support for the insurgency was "official" policy, implemented by the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency in the form of money, weapons and training.

Craig Murray writes.

What I was being told last night was very interesting indeed. NATO HQ in Brussels is today a very unhappy place. There is a strong understanding among the various national militaries that an attack by Israel on a NATO member flagged ship in international waters is an event to which NATO is obliged - legally obliged, as a matter of treaty - to react.

[...]

I leave the last word to one of the senior NATO officers - who incidentally is not British:

"Nobody but the Americans doubts the US position on the Gaza attack is wrong and insensitve. But everyone already quietly thought the same about wider American policy. This incident has allowed people to start saying that now privately to each other."

Patrick Cockburn in the Independent.

The US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who was boasting of military progress only three months ago, confessed last week that "nobody is winning". His only claim now is that the Taliban have lost momentum compared with last year.

[...]

The semi-official Pakistani view is that the US, Britain and Nato forces have become entangled in a civil war in Afghanistan between the Pashtun community, represented by the Taliban, and their Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara opponents who dominate the Kabul government. They expect the Pashtun to go on fighting until they get a real share in power. One Pashtun, a former colonel in the Pakistani army, said: "It will be difficult for the Americans and British to win the hearts and minds of the people in southern Afghanistan since at the centre of Pashtun culture is a hatred of all foreigners."