Get your politics out of my AOR

That is kind of what I read between the lines from Gen. McKiernan.

"There's a lot of negative reporting. Somebody likes to report an attack somewhere and that becomes the trend in Afghanistan, or they don't report the positive events or the absolute brutality or the illegitimacy of the Taliban," McKiernan told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

McKiernan highlighted an event last week witnessed by NATO troops in Farah province in which insurgents planting a roadside bomb grabbed two children and used them as human shields when they were attacked by NATO forces.

The four-star general also pointed to a protest last week by about 1,000 Afghans in Laghman province over the slaying of 26 local workers by Taliban militants who stopped a bus in Kandahar and killed many on board.

"That's a rejection of the brutality of the Taliban by the people of Afghanistan, and that needs to be heard," McKiernan said in the interview Sunday.

"What happens sometimes in reporting is that there's this idea that the Taliban is at the gates of Kabul, or after Sarposa (a massive June prison break) they're about ready to take control of Kandahar, or they're resurgent in Uruzgan or Helmand, and it's just not true," he said.

As Afghanistan has become part of the political football over the last couple of months - the crisis reporting has been a bit too political with who will do what where and when. I can see where as the Commander of such a critical front - it would get old.

We also know that in so much as Afghanistan goes - whoever the CINC is will more likely or not continue the direction we have been turning to in the last year.

That and the fact that ... well .... where are the MSM in Afghanistan doing the hard reporting? None of them are fit to wash Michael Yon's jock if you ask me.