On The Ground Report From Afghanistan

HELPING AFGHANS - U.S. Army soldiers help injured Afghan villagers onto a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during an operation to transport patients in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, March 28, 2010. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Nicholas T. Loyd

Afghan Front Feels Little Obama Effect -- Washington Times

Focus is Taliban, not corruption.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | Surrounded by gravel-filled buttresses and manned 24 hours a day by alert American and Afghan gunners, Combat Outpost Kowall appears like an outpost under siege. It is one of the frontline posts in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's expanded campaign to flush out a resurgent Taliban militia ahead of the major offensive on Kandahar expected in the coming months.

President Obama's surprise trip to Afghanistan was an opportunity to express U.S. displeasure with the rampant corruption in the government of President Hamid Karzai. But for the soldiers of Alpha Company of the 82nd Airborne Division, Kabul's conference halls and money-

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My Comment: This article focuses on President Obama's trip to Afghanistan, but in outposts like Combat Outpost Kowall it is clear that President Obama's visit has zero if any impact.

I feel for the Afghan soldiers who must operate in this part of Afghanistan even though they are from a different ethnic group, and I feel for the Americans who find themselves in the middle of all of this.