ISAF operations: Helmand is beginning to seem quite similar to Kandahar/White House politics

In that additional US forces are allowing the Canadians and should allow the Brits to concentrate their efforts where most of the people are--more related to the Canadians here. On the other hand the Brits are not pulling out their forces completely next year.

Meanwhile, White House people are complaining that the US military can't get President Obama's second surge troops (more here) to Afstan sooner in order to start pulling out US forces as soon as possible. Go figure (hint: politics--as in Canada).

And from an earlier post:

...The South is obviously critical [emphasis added, more here and here; I still wonder why Helmand province will end up with considerably more ISAF forces, and those being built up faster, than Kandahar--see end of this post]...

Perhaps there are, and will be, considerably more ISAF combat troops at Helmand simply because there are more Talibs there still willing to stand and fight (esp. with opium profits in mind).