The Long War: Even the U.S. military admits the Taliban is expanding its control

The bad news from AfPak continues unabated, with even the military now admitting how precarious our position has become.

The Pentagon was still trying to spin its report on the war in Afghanistan issued this week as holding out hope because the instability had leveled off, even as some news outlets were noting that it documents the continued expansion of Taliban capabilities and operations.

The most significant revelation in the report, however, is that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and the U.S.-NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) joint command now acknowledge officially that the Taliban insurgents dominate a vast contiguous zone of heavily populated territory across southern Afghanistan that McChrystal regards as the most critical area in the country.

The real question is whether any of this negative intel will result in rethinking American strategy. It looks like Afghanistan's reputation as the graveyard of empires will not be challenged by the one being run by the Pentagon and its gnomish partners at the Company.

The rest of the story: Pentagon Map Shows Wide Taliban Zone in the South - analysis by Gareth Porter (IPS News 2010-04-30)