http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2009/10/30/kipling-haunts-obamas-afghan-war/

Here’s the thing. Would you believe there is no current National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan? Rather, Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal are running the show, allowing professional intelligence analysts to be mostly straphangers at planning and strategy meetings.

CIA Director Panetta, a self-described "creature of Congress," is not going to risk putting any senior military noses out of joint by objecting, and neither is his nominal boss, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair. And, sad to say, National Security Adviser James Jones, in deferring to the military, is serving President Obama just as poorly as Bush apparatchik Condoleezza Rice served President Bush.

How many "militants" are there in Afghanistan? How may "insurgents?" How do you draw a distinction between a militant and an insurgent? Could it be that these combatants are widely regarded, in many areas of Afghanistan, as resistance fighters? What would be the implications of that?