For years, the Taliban s position about negotiating an end to the decade-long war with Hamid Karzai s government or the United States has been straightforward: U.S. troops have to leave Afghanistan first. While analysts have long speculated that the Taliban isn t really as rigid behind closed doors, its leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, now leaves no doubt. The Taliban is already negotiating with the U.S., Omar confirmed.

President Obama firmly committed the U.S. to peace talks with the Taliban in Wednesday night’s big Afghanistan speech. His administration, meanwhile, is rowing in the opposite direction: negotiating deals with Hamid Karzai’s government that would keep drones and commandos in Afghanistan forever and ever. See if you can spot the tension there. For the first time, [...]

Under President Obama, the CIA is barred from holding terrorism detainees in secret prisons. That's the Joint Special Operations Command's job now. The Associated Press' star intelligence reporter, Kimberly Dozier, has a mammoth piece out describing a constellation of 20 detention centers run by the elite unit in Afghanistan. JSOC can keep an insurgent inside them for up to nine weeks for interrogation without either turning him over to the main U.S. detention facility in Afghanistan or obtaining a waiver from either the defense secretary or the president himself to hold him longer, in the hopes of learning Taliban secrets.

Want a good measurement of “NATO’s enduring commitment” to Afghanistan even after combat forces depart? The Afghan soldiers and cops NATO trains to secure the country are going to need $6 billion from international donors every year to keep operating. Right now, the plan is to build up a force of 305,000 soldiers and police by [...]

How dangerous have the Taliban’s crude, cheap homemade bombs become? One awful measure came Sunday, when they drove a van full of explosives into a military base in southern Afghanistan, killing six U.S. soldiers. Another is this: The jury-rigged bombs have killed and wounded about a thousand more allied troops this year than in 2009. Later [...]