While Obama weighs up his options on whether to send in more troops -- with most money on about 30,000 more -- he might also glance at the latest round of public opinion polls on Afghanistan.

One by the Pew Research Center put Obama's favorable job rating on Afghanistan at 36 percent, sharply down from 49 percent in July.

On troop levels in Afghanistan, 40 percent say there should be fewer U.S. soldiers, 32 percent approve of an increase while 19 percent say current troop levels are satisfactory.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released today found that 56 percent of respondents opposed sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan while 42 percent supported additional forces.

Which way are you leaning? More troops, less, the same? Stay, go, the status quo? As commander-in-chief, will Obama go the way of Goldilocks and take the middle road, or will there be a surprise?

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama making statement about Fort Hood shootings)

BABO KHEYL - It's just after midnight and I am in the back of a helicopter, pinned against the wall with two soldiers on either side. We are in darkness, save for slivers of moonlight illuminating the door gunners.

I'm tagging along with the 1-501st Infantry Battalion as they conduct a raid on the town of Babo Kheyl in eastern Afghanistan.

It's my first night operation and I'm digesting what I've been told about Babo Kheyl. Taliban stronghold. Surrounded by muddy trenches. Armed to the teeth.
Our ride is a Chinook. Chinooks are the workhorse of the chopper fleet, transporting several dozen people at a time as well as major cargo. They're also excellent at high altitudes. If Blackhawks are racehorses, Chinooks are Clydesdales.

The helicopter begins dropping in altitude. The thigh muscles of the soldiers on both sides of me stiffen at the same moment. Weapons that had been resting on the floor are now pulled up to the soldiers' chests.

The chopper lands with a clumsy thud. We are on our feet and shuffling single file toward the rear of the helicopter. Ahead of me, two soldiers bound off the end of the ramp, sprinting into the darkness.

By the time I reach the ramp, the momentum behind me is so great it feels like a stampede. As a general rule, soldiers run off of helicopters as if they were on fire. The more time a chopper spends on the ground, the greater the chances a sniper will shoot out one of the rotors.

I'd been sold on the idea of covering an air mission after being told: "You're in and then you're out." That was only partially true.

The chopper leaves without incident and we walk briskly across a field. Our ride has spared us a six-hour trudge through minefields and muddy riverbeds also known as wadis.

My world is the green images I see through the night vision goggles. It isn't long before the soldiers are going into the first home.

Fueled by adrenaline and energy drinks with names like "Monster" and "Rip It", they spill into the house and round up the men, separating them from the women and children who looked frightened.

Tonight, they're looking for weapons, bomb-making materials and answers about recent mortar attacks on their base.

By 9 am, they've searched the entire town, arrested one man, confiscated a handful of weapons and issued stern warnings to several others.

We learn that the choppers won't be able to retrieve us until 4 pm and plant ourselves in the courtyard of one of the homes. The soldiers remove their assault packs and flop onto the ground along the wall. The next time I look up, they are all asleep. Weapons and gear are strewn all around them.

Soon, a sergeant screams at the soldiers to wake up, ordering several of them to stand guard outside.

Dusty-haired children stream into the courtyard throughout the morning, begging us for pens and enticing us to chase them. By early afternoon, I've handed over pens, lip balm, breath mints and hair elastics.

We leave the town hours later and are standing in a field when the first burst of gun-fire rings out. I drop to the ground and press my cheek into the dirt. The soldiers are on their bellies and knees, returning fire.

"Move over to the wadi. Get your asses into the wadi," someone yells.
I turn my head and realize we are exposed on all sides. The flat fields that are ideal for landing helicopters are also perfect for a ground attack. A soldier grabs my arm and we sprint for a wadi nearby.

The shots are getting closer. A cluster of bullets scream past me, buzzing so close to my shoulder and arm, my entire right side feels singed. Bullets are penetrating the dirt all around us. With my body armor and helmet, I'm top-heavy and awkward. The wadi still looks miles away and I worry I might get shot in the back.

Within seconds, a chopper is overhead, preparing to land on the tiny patch of flat ground. It skids violently and before it comes to a stop, we launch ourselves into the back of the chopper. We're in the air before we can even take our seats.
- Deborah Gembara was embedded with the 1-501st Infantry Battalion, based in Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. She took this night mission in October.

Richard Holbrooke, special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, once again declared his respect for Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

In fact, he feels so strongly about reports that the two don't get along he wrote a letter to The Washington Post.

"I did not, and never have, spoken harshly to Mr. Karzai, " said Holbrooke in the letter to the editor, which was published on Thursday. He was responding to a story earlier this week in the newspaper which said he had spoken harshly to the re-elected Afghan leader.

"As for my relations with President Karzai, whom I have known for more than five years, they remain cordial, correct and respectful," added Holbrooke, who is known for his combative style. He said the same last month when he was pressed about his relations with Karzai.

Holbrooke wrote in the letter that he had been in direct contact with Karzai since he was declared the winner of the fraud-plagued Afghan election this week.

Holbrooke is expected to travel to Afghanistan soon. No date yet. Stay tuned.

Holbrooke was last in Afghanistan in August for the election when diplomats said he delivered a strong message to Karzai about corruption, telling him the United States wanted more from the Afghan leader if he won.

But in his letter, Holbrooke said he had also made very clear to Karzai that he "looked forward to continuing our close cooperation" with him and his government.

Look for lots of public smiles and handshakes when Karzai and Holbrooke meet in Kabul. What happens behind closed doors, we'll tell you later.

Photo credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani (Karzai and Holbrooke shake hands in Kabul in February)

But on Thursday, at one of the countless policy conferences in Washington to discuss the president's choices, some experts suggested withdrawal was the best route -- and they said it would not necessarily impact efforts to fight al Qaeda.

Harvard University's Stephen Walt called the argument for disengagement "fairly compelling," while conceding it was not the most popular.

His tally of the costs: $225 billion since the Sept. 11 attacks, with more than 850 U.S. soldiers killed and thousands wounded.

"The costs are going to be large at a time when the American economy is not exactly robust," he told the Capitol Hill conference organized by the Rand Corporation.

Even if  the United States "won," al Qaeda would still have a safe haven in neighboring Pakistan as well as in Yemen, Somalia or other nations where they like to hang out, Walt said. If U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, "it is not obvious that it  will significantly enhance al Qaeda's ability to go after us."

The CATO Institute's Christopher Preble was also in the "big skeptic" column when it comes to sending in more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. He said the big question Obama needs to ask is whether the mission in Afghanistan is essential for U.S. national security -- which most experts argue it is.

"Has it become a case of we must win the war because it is the war that we are in?" asked Preble. "We must narrow our focus. We don't need a large-scale, long-term presence to degrade al Qaeda's capacity in Afghanistan."

Countering Preble and Walt, was Afghanistan expert Jim Dobbins who argued that the consequences of pulling out would be an escalation of the civil war, a region further destabilized and even more misery for the Afghan population. "You will see hardship that makes what you see now look like prosperity," said Dobbins, with the Rand Corporation.

Also pounding on the withdrawal drum was the anti-war group Code Pink, whose representative pressed Senator Carl Levin to follow public opinion and push for a pull-out.

But Levin, who is calling for more U.S. and NATO trainers to go to Afghanistan to double that country's police and army forces, said Obama was doing his best to advance the country's national security interests.

"When President Bush decided to go to Iraq, public opinion supported him. I don't' think you did. I didn't either," answered Levin to Code Pink's Medea Benjamin.

On Friday, the commander-in-chief  meets his military chiefs to hear recommendations on troop strength. Officials say his deliberations are coming to a close in what will be known in decades to come as Obama's war.

Which side of the fence are you on?

Photo credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani (U.S. soldiers patrol in Kandahar), Reuters/Mohsin Raza (anti-U.S. protester in Pakistan in May)

A day later, it was in damage control mode after the resignation of one of its star employees was plastered on the front page of The Washington Post and on the Internet.

In an emotionally-charged four-page letter dated September 10, Matthew Hoh said he was quitting because he had lost confidence in the war effort and whether it was worth the blood spilled there.

Hoh's letter is notable  because he was seen as just the kind of person the State Department wants in Afghanistan. A former Marine and then Department of Defense civilian, he served in Iraq from 2004 to 2007. On a one-year contract with the State Department, he was serving as the senior civilian representative in Afghanistan's Zabul province.

Just as President Barack Obama is reviewing his approach in Afghanistan, Hoh said he had "doubts and reservations" not only about the current but also future strategy in the eight-year war.

"I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war," said Hoh in his resignation letter to the State Department's human resources director.

In language that must make the State Department cringe, Hoh said the United States was no more than a "supporting actor" in a tragedy and that the U.S. presence had only served to further destabilize the country as well as its neighbor Pakistan.

"I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan," he said.

Excusing the "tone" of his letter, he argued that the United States was mortgaging its economy on a war which would drag on for years.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Hoh had been a "valued member" of the team in Afghanistan and that the department respected his opinion.

"We take his opinion seriously but we continue to believe that we are on track to achieve the goals that have been laid out for us. Those are to improve Afghan governance and provide security for the people of Afghanistan and help to rebuild their country and have a future which presents an alternative to the negative vision of the Taliban," said Kelly.

The White House was noncommittal in its response to the letter. "I think the president has seen the story. I don't believe the president has seen the letter," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

State Department officials said there had been a lot of arm-twisting to try and get Hoh to stay and that the special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, had also appealed to him not to quit.

Asked whether there could now be a rush of other resignations -- as happened during the Iraq war when disaffected State Department officials quit in protest of U.S. strategy -- U.S. officials said they did not think that would happen.

"There is a tendency to conflate this with the resignations during the Iraq invasion, but this is really not the case. Not to diminish this guy's views, but...I don't sense a groundswell of resignations. The response to serve in Afghanistan is so much bigger than it was in Iraq," said one official.

This was certainly the message from Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew on Monday who said there were more applications than jobs for posts in Afghanistan.

Well now there is an opening in Zabul province to fill....

UPDATE: A State Department official called to make clear that Hoh was not a career foreign service officer, but was on a limited contract for the department when he resigned.

Photo credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic (Afghan policeman patrols village in Zabul province in 2008), Reuters/Jim Young (State Department building in Washington)

Special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, used that tactic on Friday when asked about reports that veteran Senator John Kerry is stealing his limelight.

"I'd like to make a joke and say, 'I'm always happy to be eclipsed by John Kerry.' But then you'll take it seriously and then I'll cause more problems," Holbrooke told reporters.

Kerry was in Kabul earlier this week with a mission to convince incumbent President Hamid Karzai to agree to a run-off election after the flawed first round in August. Apparently Holbrooke was also working the phones as was U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But it was Kerry who grabbed the headlines, prompting journalists to question whether he was the de facto secretary of state and key player when it came to dealing with Karzai.

While Kerry was prodding Karzai in Kabul, Holbrooke said he was in Washington helping Clinton prepare for meetings with President Barack Obama as he reviews U.S. strategy on Afghanistan. Holbrooke's last visit to Kabul was in August when he met several times with Karzai.  Some of those meetings were said to be heated.

But on Friday, Holbrooke brushed aside talk of strained relations with Karzai, saying they got along just  "fine," he had "respect" for the Afghan leader and looked forward to seeing him soon.

"I have absolutely no problems with him.  And -- and it's as simple as that."

Let's see what the body language is like when Holbrooke next visits Karzai at his palace in Kabul. Will they hold a joint news conference as Karzai did with Kerry this week?

Photo credit: Reuters/Ahmad Masood (Kerry and Karzai at news conference in Kabul in October) Reuters/Omar Sobhani (Holbrooke and Karzai in Kabul in February)

Take Mia Farrow's 21-year-old son Ronan, who was all over the blogosphere today for his role as liaison between the office of star "Afpak" diplomat Richard Holbrooke and nongovernmental groups working in Pakistan.

Several NGO officials said they were taken aback when Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, introduced his protege at a meeting in Washington this week as a "special liaison" on Pakistan.

"It was a surprise but we don't see this really as a big deal. He's not the only point of contact for us," said one NGO of  Farrow's appointment.

Ronan Farrow, whose father is famous director Woody Allen, has known Holbrooke for years apparently, and helped the veteran diplomat before.

What experience does the recent Yale Law School graduate bring to the job?

He has worked with the United Nations Children's Fund and also helped his mother in her well-publicized advocacy work for Sudan's Darfur region.

A quick Google search also turns up a series of recent articles on Darfur and other human rights issues that the younger Farrow has written in leading publications, including the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.

Another famous son in the news this week was the 23-year-old offspring of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy who was up for a big Paris job managing La Defense district.

A furor erupted that the undergraduate law student was unqualified to take responsibility for a corporate hub that generates about 10 percent of French GDP.

Photo credit: Reuters/Faisal Mahmood (Holbrooke in Pakistan in June), Reuters/staff photographer (Mia Farrow in Bahai in 2007)

But the former U.S. president has dominated the news since he turned up in North Korea seeking the release of two American journalists, while Hillary Clinton headed to Africa for her first major trip there as the top U.S. diplomat.

Secretary of State Clinton stayed out of sight from reporters traveling with her on the 15-hour flight to Kenya. Her staff said she would not comment on her husband's mission to Pyongyang, which the White House billed as private.

"While the mission is in progress, we will have no comment. Our interest here is the successful completion of the mission and the safe return of the journalists," said a senior U.S. official traveling with her.

There has been talk in the State Department for weeks over who to send to North Korea to see leader Kim Jong-il and try to free the reporters.

Most bets were on the other Bill -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- or Clinton's vice president Al Gore. The reporters -- Euna Lee and Laura Ling -- worked for Gore's California-based media outlet Current TV. 

Reuters photo by Thomas Mukoya ( Hillary Clinton greeted by Kenya's foreign minister in Nairobi on Aug. 4)

 Did the top U.S. diplomat possibly get the new H1N1 swine flu during her trips to Mexico in late March and with U.S. President Barack Obama last month?

"You'll be happy to know it's just mild allergies.  She suffers from mild allergies.  That's all it is," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood when asked about Clinton's health.

 Another aide said Clinton has had allergies for a long time. The flu virus has killed up to 176 people in Mexico and since spread to the United States, where there has been one death.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 30)

The Clintons -- albeit separately -- addressed a donors conference on Haiti on Tuesday -- Hillary as the new top diplomat and Bill as the head of his charity.  

In her morning address, Hillary Clinton shared her love for the impoverished nation, revealing she went to Haiti for the first time with her husband soon after they were married. 

"We have a deep commitment to Haiti and the people of Haiti. Our homes are filled with art from Haiti and we have friends who hail from Haiti," she gushed. 

Clinton will be in Haiti on Thursday, following in her husband's footsteps after he went there last month along with U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, who was also at the conference. 

Conference organizers allotted Bill Clinton the prime lunchtime address but the former president was quick to pass on credit to his wife. 
"Besides, the Secretary of State has spoken for my family here today," he said to laughs from the audience.

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Photo credits: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton concludes his remarks to the Haiti Donors Conference at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2009, after his wife, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted when she arrived at the same conference earlier in the day.