Analyst's note:  I am absolutely convinced that Diana has a valid point.

[....] How do Bush and Obama and Mullen and Kilcullen and Petraeus and McChrystal and now John R. Allen, the current commanding general in Afghanistan, explain the welcome Allied forces received across Europe in 1945 despite the massive suffering and death the Allies, too, inflicted? The answer is that the liberated peoples rejected the Nazis and their ideology. So why doesn't the same logic work on "liberated" Afghans? Maybe they don't reject either the Taliban or their ideology. Maybe there's just way too much overlap on both counts. 

[....] enter into the Islamic maelstrom of aggrievement and apology and promising to do better. Yes, master, good dhimmi that we are (we never even said a cross word about six Americans murdered in Koran Burning Rage last month), we will take this soldier, brain injury or not, too many COIN combat tours or not, and string him up to sate the bloodlust of the noble Afghan people -- anything to quell Islamic rage. And of course we will send out our men on more IED death marches, happily. We do it all for you.  Do you like us yet?  No? We'll do more.

They call it COIN and wear uniforms, but it's really psychosis and they should be in hospital robes.

Meanwhile, if Afghans were with us, if they were actually against the true butchers, the Taliban, if they were concerned about which side had innocent blood on its hands, and which side did everything humanly possible to prevent such violence even at the expense of its own people, Afghan hearts and minds would have been "won" long ago.

But that will never be. In fact, guess what happens if ISAF gets to its goal of zero civilian casualties?

Nothing.

Related article:

More mass murder in Afghanistan predicted beyond 'The Panjway 16'