WARDAK PROVINCE, Afghanistan — "If you leave here like you left Iraq, I am a dead man," says the blunt-speaking district governor. His district chief of police, a newly appointed civil judge and the chief of the Afghan Local Police detachment all nod their heads in assent. None of them is smiling. We are reminded by the commander of the special operations unit with whom we are living not to broadcast names or faces of Afghan security force personnel. The local district governor is speaking through an interpreter. He doesn't pull any punches: "You must not abandon us again. You...
