With the war in Afghanistan seemingly blowing up in their faces, top Obama Administration officials are as determined as ever to shrug off criticism and insist that things are going just swimmingly, no changes required.

 

So with President Karzai calling on NATO troops to be confined to base and the Taliban abandoning its negotiations in the wake of this weekend’s massacre, and the Afghan public, already livid over Quran burnings late last month seemingly as furious as is humanly possible now, the White House is once again insisting that the US is going to “stick to” its mission.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, fresh off Karzai’s demands in a news conference in Afghanistan, insisted that he is convinced the occupation is “on the right path” and that “the key right now is to stick to that path.”

 

It’s hard to imagine how much worse the war could possibly get at this point, but the mission right now seems to be convincing everyone that these repeated disasters simply aren’t happening.