(Yuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images...American and Afghan soldiers on a joint patrol last week in Kandahar Province. Military officials say the counterinsurgency strategy needs time to work.)

The Obama White House is getting a wee bit nervous that Americans are increasingly less supportive of the war in Aghanistan.  Congress, especially the House, mirrors that sentiment, and more Representatives, at least, are balking at blanket funding.  General Ray Odierno is pushing back at the House for cutting funding for certain projects in Iraq, for instance.

At the same time, Robert Gates and General Petraeus and other military commanders want the Afghanistan timetable extended.  Gates will be on NBC's Meet the Press tomorrow morning; look for David Gregory to ask Gates the really tough and incisive questions (once he finishes saluting, that is). 

Gates will tell us how many things have gone right there this month, including capturing some top Taliban leaders 'connected with Al Qaeda, and the progress already made in night raids in Kandahar (the offensive has begun, for those of us who have been awaiting its prolonged beginning).

According to the New York Times, young officers who have been involved in 'the art of counter-insurgency efforts for nine years are telling administration officials that they need more time to get their work done.  (It's just about those other nine years...well, rats!)

"Their argument," said one senior administration official, who would not speak for attribution about the internal policy discussions, "is that while we've been in Afghanistan for nine years, only in the past 12 months or so have we started doing this right, and we need to give it some time and think about what our long-term presence in Afghanistan should look like."   (italics mine)

[Gates] is expected to say [on Meet the Press that the last of the 30,000 additional troops Mr. Obama ordered to Afghanistan last December will not arrive until later this month, and that the counterinsurgency strategy has not been given enough time to succeed."

Time-clocks

"For now, White House officials say that they are sticking to their plan for a conditions-based withdrawal starting in July 2011, and that in areas where counterinsurgency operations just began this year, their plan still calls for giving American forces roughly two years to show results and transfer control to Afghan security forces.

Obama administration officials said that in their first review of Afghan policy during the Bush years, the conclusion was that a failure to provide adequate resources was worsened by a failure to set deadlines for results.

The two-year clock, officials say, started in June 2009 when the first additional forces, more than 20,000 troops long requested by American commanders, arrived in Afghanistan. Those troops will have been in place for two years by next summer, the deadline for the beginning of the withdrawal under Mr. Obama's plan."

In areas where operations began this year -- like Marja, where results have been disappointing, and Kandahar, where American Special Operations forces are now conducting night raids to diminish the middle ranks of the Taliban -- the two-year clock started later, and the work there could continue well into 2012."  (italics mine) 

Another time-clock

At the Kabul International Donor Conference July 19 and 20, over 50 nations signed an agreement outlining guidelines for aid recipient targets, etc., plus a timetable of NATO and US presence until 2014, when Afghan security forces could reasonably be expected to take over operations.  That, while Secretary of State Clinton said in a speech to conference attendees:

"We know the road ahead will not be easy," she said. "Citizens of many nations represented here, including my own, wonder whether success is even possible - and, if so, whether we all have the commitment to achieve it. We will answer these questions with our actions. "

Meanwhile: 

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and American rescue teams.

The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded.

The operation, east of Kabul, was extraordinary in that it was not coordinated in advance with NATO forces and did not at first include coalition forces or air support. The Afghans called for help after 10 of their soldiers were killed and perhaps twice as many captured at the opening of the operation nine days ago...  (Keep reading here; reports differ;  warning: page two is hard reading)

Oxfam Reports on Wasted Aid Money; Poll on What Afghans Want (read here at Foreign Policy via The New Republic, Peter Bergen

"Nor have Afghans seen much for the approximately $36 billion in reconstruction aid that has flowed to their country since 2001. Many of these funds have been consumed by the various international organizations whose four-wheel drives clog the streets of Kabul. A 2008 report by the British charity Oxfam found that around 40 percent of aid to Afghanistan was funneled to donor countries to maintain home offices in the West and pay for Western-style salaries, benefits, and vacations. Another study found that less than 20 percent of international aid ended up being spent on local Afghan projects. Afghanistan remains one of the world's poorest nations, on par with such basket cases as Somalia.

All around the mulberry bush

the monkey chased the time-clock...

er...Taliban...er...Al Qaeda...er...profits...

er...what was it , again?

I don't know about you, but I really don't think Obama's time-clock is anything but bullshit, given all of the above.  Call me a cynic; yes; I am a cynic about all this.

Robert Gates again:  "Defense Secretary Gates signaled the military's position recently when he said that the initial troop withdrawals next summer "will be of fairly limited numbers."

If Obama sends home 100 troops...has he fulfilled his July 2011 draw-down pledge?