You’d never know it from US media coverage (or lack thereof), but the US military is still engaged in two separate wars at the same time, still killing lots of civilians who happen to be in the wrong place (their homes) at the wrong time (whenever Americans are in the same time zone), and still getting its butts kicked:

On Thursday, during a visit to NATO headquarters here, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal admitted that preparations for perhaps the most critical operation of the war -- the campaign to take control of Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace -- weren't going as planned. He said winning support from local leaders, some of whom see the Taliban fighters not as oppressors but as their Muslim brothers, was proving tougher than expected. The military side of the campaign, originally scheduled to surge in June and finish by August, is now likely to extend into the fall.

"I don't intend to hurry it," McChrystal told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. "It will take a number of months for this to play out. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's more important we get it right than we get it fast."

But McChrystal does not have time on his side. The day before he revealed the Kandahar delay, his boss, Gates, said that the U.S.-led coalition has until the end of the year to show progress in the war and prove to the United States and its allies that their forces have broken a stalemate with the Taliban.

You’ll recall that the end of the year was the deadline Obama set when he announced his original “surge” late last year. According to the War-Criminal-in-Chief, progress must be shown by then or the US will leave. The simple solution, however, is to claim progress anyway:

McChrystal said he was confident that his counterinsurgency strategy was bearing fruit and that he would be in position to demonstrate that by year's end. "The perception that the insurgency has momentum is reversing," he said. "Progress won't show every day, but it will show over time."

Count on that. The report is already written. Like Petraeus before him, McChrystal knows the reality on the ground, but is politically adroit enough to tell his boss the President exactly what he (and a large chunk of the American people) want to hear: really, deep in their hearts, even after we bomb their cities to rubble, kill their children, and turn their government over to this year’s kleptocratic quisling puppets, the latest batch of Sacrificial Brown People really, really do love us. Watch. At the end of the year, the report will be “encouraging.” All we’ll need is more time. And money, of course. Lots and lots of money.

Meantime, on the ground, the reality is rather different. It’s been a bad week for US forces in Afghanistan. From Democracy Arsenal’s Michael Cohen:

Has anyone noticed that every day this week there has been a major story highlighting the strategic incoherence of US efforts in southern Afghanistan?

First on Monday, we have reports that the training of the Afghan military is way behind where it needs to be and that the military may have "deliberately exaggerated" its effectiveness. On Tuesday came word that President Karzai is increasingly isolated and lashing out at those around him confirming the long-held view that he is a poor partner for a counters-insurgency operation. Yesterday, there was a major story about how the US is no longer waging an "offensive" in Kandahar, but instead will focus on supplying "government aid" to the city while guaranteeing security. I have not a clue as to how that is supposed to work. Then there was also news that 10 NATO soldiers, including 7 Americans were killed in insurgent attacks and 39 Afghans were killed in a wedding celebration.

Finally, word comes today from Rajiv "He Really Needs to Win a Pulitzer" Chandrasekaren that the military is now acknowledging Marja is not working out the way they planned.

"The longer-than-expected effort to secure Marja is prompting alarm among top American commanders that they will not be able to change the course of the war in the time President Obama has given them."

They needn’t fret. The fix is in. Count on it. The only thing that could change the equation is if the American people start to give a damn. Which might explain why none of these stories -– especially the spectacular failure of what was supposed to be a quick, overwhelming early spring offensive in Marja -– has gotten much play on the evening news.