we should listen.

he's concerned about the Karzai govt.'s ability to be a constructive partner and concerned about adding more troops.

note that Karl Eikenberry served two tours as a general in Afghanistan before becoming the U.S. ambassador to the country under President Obama.

from the Nation we learn:

In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents.

Nation

Unlike Gen McChrystal, Amb Eikenberry understands the full scope (political, economic & military) of Afghanistans problems.

President Barack Hussein Obama would do well to give this fellow more of his time.

given this issue, my guess is that he's listening to both the McChrystals and the Eikenberrys as well as any number of experts in other fields. To me, it seems that Obama is between I-Rock and a Paki-place on all this. For IF we leave, Karzai will have much to gain and very little to lose, by simply reaching an accomodation with the Taliban - one in which each gets to preserve his own sphere of influence. And if that happened, we'd be right back where we were before 9/11.