this, if there is a town hall and general petraeuses and people say to him, you were supposed to make things better. isn t things supposed to be improving? he is going to say it is improving and he will have a lots of points to show everybody. it is the deadliest year ever. that is what happens when we increase the pace of operations and a lot more casualties, that s what we have to do. i m saying what he is going to say. what we are committed to getting out, we ll start pulling ow troops in july and 18 months and i ve committed to do it. the fact of the matter is that things in afghanistan are going much more slowly. ambassador ike ikenberry made t point today or yesterday and said he s surprised with the very slow pace of operations and success we re having in afghanistan. i wonder if it plays into people who say, look, if we tell the taliban, if we tell the bad guys, whoever they might be,