As for karzai you are repeating the msm storyline. Whether it's true or not, I don't know, maybe it is, this time. What I do know is to take anything from the drive bys with a handful of salt.
"A troop surge would be merely to maintain a holding pattern ‘til something good happens."
That good thing may well be victory. That was the same arguments used by the dems in opposing the surge in iraq.
I really don’t have access to the MSM most days. But I’ve heard stories of Karzai’s corruption and his attempt to make piece with Taliban from a well-respected commentator, himself a former military intelligence officer. Problem with maintaining a holding pattern paid for in blood, however, is that the drive-bys tend to turn against that sort of thing, as they did with Dubya. Now if you were President Obama, and a fake, phony fraud and a coward down to your bones, would you risk that kind of a strategy? That’s my bottom line. He will not do it. It might be he ought to. There might be no other way. But he’s not going out on a limb for any so’jers, not if it costs him approval rating points. He’ll just show up to be photographed at Dover, saluting their remains and looking “dignified,” and he’ll have plenty of photo opportunities.