General Petraeus is an apologist for Pakistan’s General Kayani who has been continuing Musharraf’s duplicitous policy of ‘running with the hares while hunting with the hounds’.

Defense Secretary Gates has sought to justify Pakistan’s terrorist connections, alluding to a “deficit of trust” between Washington, DC and Islamabad. Mr Gates also said there was “some justification” for Pakistan's concerns about past American policies. Gen David Patraeus, rushed in with an apologia for his Pakistani friends, by claiming that while Faisal was inspired by militants in Pakistan, he did not necessarily have contacts with the militants. Both Adm Mike Mullen and Gen Patraeus fancy themselves to be “soldier statesmen” a la Gen Dwight Eisenhower. Adm Mullen has visited Pakistan 15 times and Gen Patraeus no less frequently. Both evidently have high opinions of their abilities to persuade Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.

For some diabolical reason, Gates, Mullen, Petraeus & Company has split the Taliban into the Afghan and Pakistani parts even though they are two peas of the same pod. The US military is going after the Pakistani Taliban, while it encourages the Pakistani intelligence to continue to shelter the entire top Afghan Taliban leadership in Baluchistan province (now relocated to Karachi by Pakistani ISI to protect it from US drone strikes). Mullah Muhammad Omar and other members of the Taliban's inner shura (council) had been ensconced for years in the Quetta area and are now in Karachi.

As General McChrystal reported in his assessment of August, 2009 to the President: ‘The Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) based in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, is the No. 1 threat to US/NATO mission in Afghanistan. At the operational level, the Quetta Shura conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Mohammed Omar (Afghan Taliban Chief) announces his guidance and intent for the coming year‘.

However US drones have targeted militants in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), but not the Afghan Taliban leadership operating with impunity from Baluchistan. US ground-commando raids also have spared the Afghan Taliban's command-and-control network in Baluchistan.

Previous US ambassador Anne Patterson to Pakistan, wrote in a secret review in 2009 that ‘Pakistan's Army and ISI are covertly sponsoring four militant groups - Haqqani‘s HQN, Mullah Omar‘s QST, Al Qaeda and LeT - and will not abandon them for any amount of US money‘, as diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show.

Failure of current US Afghan mission can be largely laid at the door steps of Gates, Petraeus, Mullen and company.

Anything that Petraeous says now will be self-serving. It's been only a few ywears back that Bush flew into a remote base in Iraq to give sychophantic Petraeous his talking points just before another trip to Congress. It should be interesting to see how many reasons he will propose for keeping us in Afghanistan for 25 more years. So the little girls can go to school? So women won't have their noses slashed?He will ignore all the mangled bodies of the innocents that have been killed in our re-incarnation of the old Phoenix program from Viet Nam. That new program tries to kill or capture all top level Taliban commanders. Unfortunately, it kills lots of innocents with the bomb splatter and night raids.

Both Adm Mike Mullen and Gen Patraeus fancy themselves to be “soldier statesmen” a la Gen Dwight Eisenhower. Adm Mullen has visited Pakistan 15 times and Gen Patraeus no less frequently. Both evidently have high opinions of their abilities to persuade Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.For some diabolical reason, Gates, Mullen, Petraeus & Company has split the Taliban into the Afghan and Pakistani parts even though they are two peas of the same pod. The US military is going after the Pakistani Taliban, while it encourages the Pakistani intelligence to continue to shelter the entire top Afghan Taliban leadership in Baluchistan province (now relocated to Karachi by Pakistani ISI to protect it from US drone strikes). Mullah Muhammad Omar and other members of the Taliban's inner shura (council) had been ensconced for years in the Quetta area and are now in Karachi.