This one is for eveyone's favorite "Air Blogger"

During a discussion of Donald Rumsfeld's speech of a few weeks ago I was asked if I thought that Rumsfeld should resign. I said I did, but not because of the speech. Instead Rumsfeld should resign because he had pulled off a rare feat of extreme incompetence by losing two wars simultaneously. This remark seemed to provoke a certain amount of derision. We're not losing either one, I was assured.

From today's Strib:

Fresh troops fail to slow bloodshed in Baghdad

In the past 24 hours, nearly 100 Iraqis have been killed, despite an extra 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops in the capital....

The apparent resurgence in execution-style murders, which are often associated with sectarian violence and death squads, came as U.S. and Iraqi patrols have been sweeping Baghdad neighborhoods in search of insurgents, militia and criminal gangs.

Since the operation began on Aug. 7, U.S. officials cited figures showing that such killings in Baghdad declined by more than 50 percent in August, compared with July.

U.S. officials wouldn't provide specific numbers, however, and have said that their comparison doesn't include victims of car bombings, mortar attacks and other so-called mass-casualty violence.

Statistics released by the Baghdad morgue suggest that the decline in violence from July to August was around 18 percent, with 1,529 violent deaths in August and 1,855 in July.

and

Is Afghanistan slipping away?

The fighting is a startling reversal from the days after the Taliban was ousted.

Almost five years after a U.S.-led coalition attacked Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, experts warn that the country is slipping away.

The hard-line Islamic Taliban militia is back, controlling half the country by some estimates. Fighting in the south is some of the fiercest that Western troops have faced in 50 years.

On Wednesday, NATO announced that suicide bombings have killed 173 people -- including 151 civilians -- in the country so far this year. The remaining victims include NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan authorities.

So, is this what victory looks like? Because I always thought it had more flowers and parades and less, you know, explosions.