Taliban winning much of northern Afghanistan

The Wall Street Journal has plenty of details, including noting that U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, had a request outstanding for 10,000 more troops, and that McChrystal will probably eventually ask again for them himself.

That would probably explain a renewed round of drumbeats for more Western troops in Afghanistan, this one actually writing for the British outpost of the U.S. bipartisan foreign policy establishment.

Meanwhile, the British have agreed with the U.S. on the alleged need to target Afghan drug lords, while the Pentagon now has a hit list of them.