In Afghanistan, a waiting game to outlast the Obama administration - George F. Will

Evidently Hamid Karzai did not get the memo on terminology. U.S. military commanders have stopped using the word "operation" to describe the drive, now delayed, against the Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city.

This word connotes danger and stirs dread among the population, whose allegiance is the prize for which counterinsurgency is waged. But Afghanistan's president, speaking there on Sunday, anticipated a "purification operation," saying "this operation requires sacrifice." - Waiting games in Afghanistan

Afghan mineral wealth may be greater: $3 trillion
Obama's Afghan Dilemma - Time Magazine