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HELMAND - Residents of Helmand, the southern Afghanistan province that the US Marines are currently storming in their biggest operation since Fallujah 2004, knew this was coming. I just returned with Anup Kaphle from a short trip there and observed not only a highly fragile, Taliban-friendly land, but also one being steadily and conspicuously stocked with men and materiel, and prepared for an invasion like the one now underway.

KANDAHAR -- Afghanistan, where I have just landed, is filled with illusions of space and of time. A distance that looks on a map like a short afternoon drive can take eight hours to traverse, and a face lined with a century of wrinkles often turns out to have earned them in just forty years.