• He’s in the midst of meeting with Obama this morning. Will he lose his position? Well, Obama wants a list of replacements. We’re guessing it’ll be people who aren’t loyal to McChrystal. It does not look good for the dude. The Pentagon would prefer that he be reprimanded but allowed to continue. Obama and McChrystal are meeting now. This is what happens when you do an article in a magazine that gives a general as much press as Lady Gaga. source

• Look, no matter your opinion of the mag, they’ve never strictly been a music mag. So why is USA Today launching into this criticism of the magazine in regards to the Stanley McChrystal article? Here’s what they said: “One of the odd things about this story: What’s it doing in Rolling Stone, a magazine devoted largely to music?” Maybe you haven’t read the magazine in 30 years, but their political coverage is spot-on. They have a pretty amazing political cud-chewer in the form of Matt Taibbi. And the features are usually awesome. Criticizing Rolling Stone for coverage they’ve always had is tantamount to ignorance. Now, their music coverage, on the other hand … that’s gone downhill. (Disclosure: We got bit by the journalism bug reading long features in Rolling Stone. Somehow we ended up here.) source

• Wow, this looks bad. John McCain went white during the hearing when questioning the general on Afghanistan. After a few minutes, Petraeus was feeling better, eating and drinking water. He apparently didn’t eat breakfast before the hearing. Still, an immensely harrowing clip. source

• It’s this shepherd’s lucky day. He’s standing on so much lithium that he could power your laptop’s battery for decades to come. He doesn’t have to herd livestock in the worst place in the world anymore. There are $1 tRILLION dollars worth of precious metals to mine for. This is big. It could change the entire war and might even be enough to defang the Taliban, if it’s handled correctly. And it could make the value of Glenn Beck’s gold tip downward. (Thank God.) Some more details on the amazing find:

• $1
  trillion the amount of money the country is currently standing on
• $12
  billion the size of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product last year

Some obvious questions

• What’s down there? Lots of stuff, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium. An internal memo says Afghanistan could be the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Wow, nice metaphor.
• how long will it take? It might take a few years to put together the things needed to help Afghanistan take advantage of their vast resources. And the U.S. is already there.
• Current economic driver? Opium. Lots and lots of opium. Part of the reason terrorism is so strong in the region is because so much money comes from the opium trade and narcotics trafficking.

Did Afghanistan mine before?

• This is a country that has no mining culture. They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.
• United States Geological Survey geologist Jack Medlin • On the sheer lack of mining history n the country. So why wasn’t this discovered before? Well, there were hints of it in prior Soviet-era documents, but for whatever reason, the potential was overlooked. No longer. The U.S. has spent too freaking long in this country not to start mining it for what it’s worth. It’s estimated that it’s going to take decades to reach their full potential of mining. This’ll be fun to watch. It’ll make their opium crops seem like a waste of time. source

• The president has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country. President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn’t trust it is working.
• Former Afghan intelligence director Amrullah Saleh • Explaining his feelings about Hamid Karzai’s take on the war. Essentially, he has no confidence in either his country or his coalition. He reportedly thinks the Americans were behind the attack (on a national peace conference, no less) that led to Saleh’s resignation. He and one other top security official resigned in the wake of the attack. A diplomat hiding behind anonymity agrees: “Karzai told me that he can’t trust the Americans to fix the situation here. He believes they stole his legitimacy during the elections last year. And then they said publicly that they were going to leave.” source

• 40+ number of people killed in the suicide bombing, during a wedding in the village of Nagahan
• 70+ number of people injured; the groom was a anti-Taliban militia member who was badly injured source

• He’s a top-ranking dude in Afghanistan. It’s still not confirmed, but the U.S. believes that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid was a victim of a missile strike that hit over the last couple of weeks. Al-Qaeda is talking about the dude like he was killed. “His death will only be a severe curse by his life upon the infidels,” a member of the group wrote on a radical Web site. source