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Troops who served in Konar province near the Pakistan border saw some of the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan. Here they give their account of what they saw and why there is a big gap in what they saw and what military officers and President Obama are telling Americans. Fort Campbell is spread out over 100,000 acres on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Tweny thousand troops from this base served in Afghanistan. Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell fought some of the toughest battles in the eastern part of Afghanistan even while the surge concentrated troops in the southern part near populated centers. What the troops remember is battles fought in remote valleys where troops came out of nowhere like "ghosts," in areas which were held only for a few months and abandoned with no idea what they had accomplished. This description also fits with the reality of the Taliban being both Pakistani and Afghan in the sense that the borders were defined by the British during colonial times, but the tribes of the Pashtun region are on both sides, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To subdue the region would be to subdue the Pakistani side and the support they enjoy in large parts of Pakistan, with the large and mountainous terrain making movement difficult. Which is why these troops talk about "ghosts" turning up from nowhere and find the fighting to have lost meaning in terms of purposes it is supposed to accomplish and how this is to be done. The reality of the valleys and hills over a vast mountainous terrain of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the people and fighting there does not fit the speeches made by President Obama on Afghanistan, and say soldiers this gap is widening every day....

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10.5 million vehicles is the new number at GM for USA auto sales in 2009. GM has consistently predicted a scenario for auto sales that is much higher than it has turned out to be, leading to a lack of proactive speedy decisionmaking where needed to close plants, get financing and other steps needed to pull the company out of trouble. This new lower number may also turn out to be higher than actual because figures for inventories, unemployment, foreclosures, consumer spending, exports, all are worsening.

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The growing number of women in their 40's who are childless, one person homes, "child-free" adults, higher rates of divorce, are not limited just to Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan. This is spreading rapidly in lower income countries in the Arab world and Asia also. In Europe the progress is relentless. With divorce rates higher and fewer women marrying, the probability of a women of reproductive age getting married in Belgium is about 40%, and divorce at about 50%, according to Eurostat. So that the probability of women getting married and staying married is about 20%. This is true of other European countries also. There is a huge increase in "child-free' adults, men and women choosing voluntarily to not have children. The proportion of childless women in their 40's is highest in Berlin and Hamburg, nearly 33%, about 25% in Italy, and 20% in Sweden. One person homes are increasing in Western Europe, with about 32% in Europe and 45% in Denmark, not from aging alone as in Denmark as many as twice the number of one person homes are under age 65 than over 65. The UN population Division's "World Marraige Data 2012," shows that places like Morocco, Libya, and other parts of the Arab world are also experiencing these trends, with income and schooling levels much lower than in Europe and the U.S. These trends are now worldwide and affecting traditionally conservative societies like China....

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The U.S. Labor Department reports that 4.4 million unemployed workers in the U.S. were out of work for more than one year. For the U.S. this is 30% of all unemployed. In some of the largest states about one in three unemployed workers have been out of work for more than one year. For New Jersey which has a 9.4% unemployment rate compared to 9.6% nationally, 37.1% were out of work for more than one year. Older Americans, the highly educated workers, are more likely to have longer stretches of unemployment. This is the situation in New Jersey and Florida where there is a larger population of older workers.

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In a program of gradual change the new leadership under premier Li Keqiang steers China's economy in the new direction set by the DRC Report: China 2030 and the Third Plenum in Nov. 2013. New priorities listed under major Tasks in the annual work report by Li Keqiang place setting up deposit insurance at the top of the list. Policy changes include allowing cities to issue bonds directly to increase transparency in construction spending and control burgeoning debt.

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Fareed Zakaria points out that the primary elections of the Republican and Democratic parties can pose a danger to democracy because of demagogic politicians who can appeal to popular passions to bring a fringe group or individual to the presidency. Primaries for both parties became important after 1968. Eisenhower and Lincoln won the nomination after the person nominated on the first ballot failed to win the necessary votes. Another serious problem is that the turnout in the primaries is low, so low that a 15% turnout is considered high turnout. The media attention is so great that it creates the impression that a real election has taken place when in reality about 85% of the people have not voted- as the Economist magazine points out a representative turnout would change the outcome significantly so it is not clear how much this promotes democratic process.

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Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, and the leader of the British Liberal Democrats party, the junior member in the coalition government in Britain, said he was "bitterly disappointed" by prime minister Cameron's decision to reject a pact for 27 EU nations to revise E.U. treaties. He told the BBC in a long interview :"This is bad for Britain." Britain is close to becoming a country "hovering in the mid-Atlantic and not being taken seriously in Europe." But he said "it would be a disaster" for the Liberal Democrats to withdraw from the coalition. Cameron's conditions for protecting Britain's financial industry were rejected by Merkel and Sarkozy.

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Concern about stimulus spending for infrastructure. Are the best projects being funded? Are some projects that are shovel ready but not the ones we should be doing first going to get done before other essential projects. The lack of acoherent plan for rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastrure of roads, bridges and highways. Martin Feldstein says that this recession will last longer than others, so the stimulus spending even if slow will show its impact in 2010 and 2011.

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Felipe Calderon is President of Mexico till Dec. 1, 2012, when Enrique Pena Nieto takes office. He describes the priorities for the next administration at the Mexican cultural center in Washington D.C. The first is to allow foreign investment in Mexico's oil industry. His efforts to do this were watered down in Mexico's Congress. The renewal of the ban on assault weapons in the U.S. is another priority, as 80% of the 150,000 weapons confiscated by Mexican law enforcement were bought in U.S. gun shops. Calderon's says he worked hard in his term of office to make Mexico "a rule-of-law state."

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France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain agreed to have automatic exchange of information for offshore accounts to fight tax evasion. Luxembourg agreed to join this group. The EU nation move follows the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010 which requires foreign banks and entities to disclose accounts of U.S. citizens, in an effort to fight tax evasion.

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Former U.S. president Bush says the U.S. has an important role as a beacon of freedom, human rights and democracy in the world. The U.S. should not shrink from the challenges in the name of a false and temporary stability, and flexibility should not mean ambiguity, difficulties should not mean shrugging away from America's role. Patience, creativity and active American leadership are needed. The Bush administration supported the struggles of people in central Europe and in other countries. This is from a speech Bush gave at the Bush Institute, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, a year into the Arab Spring. A speech that was giving voice to the aspirations of people in the Arab world.

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Bruni on the view that Obama has squandered his advantages of oratorical transcendence, poetry, serious thoughtfulness, in the U.S. presidential election of 2012. He does not mention the lack of a serious plan to turn the economy around, high rate of joblessness and declining incomes that are a basic issue in the 2012 election, and how oratorical transcendence has little correlation with getting the right policies implemented. The Des Moines Register's support in 2008 put Obama on the road to the presidency in 2008 with a victory in the Iowa primary. In 2012 it gave its endorsement to Romney to give him a chance to correct the problems with the economy and to do this with a new effort to forge the bipartisan consensus missing in the Obama first term.

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With Britain not willing to join an EU wide agreement for all 27 countries in the region, Sweden and the Czech Republic asking for time to consult its parliament, and Hungary declining, only 23 EU countries are now on board for new EU wide treaty changes for fiscal discipline. This makes new EU treaty changes unlikely, and means France and Germany will move ahead with a eurozone agreement for the 17 nation group. This can be done much faster than the cumbersome process for EU treaty revisions. The details of the new agreement will be worked out in the coming weeks and should restore confidence in financial markets. The problem now most experts say is that a new agreement might move too quickly to reduce deficits, worsening the economic prospects in the European Union countries. Fernando Fernandez, an economist at IE Business School in Madrid, says the critical question is how much time countries will be given to meet new rules. If for instance debt is to be reduced by 20 percentage points of GDP in 3 years under new rules, this would impact eurozone growth severely with sharp contractions in already fragile economies. Peter Morici, business professor at the University of Maryland, underscores this, saying Germany is close to zero growth and economies of countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy are contracting. Higher unemployment will result with smaller tax bases, making the situation appear to improve as borrowing rates for Italy drop now, but worsening the situation in 2012-2013 as deficit projections are not attainable. This is already true in Britain where earlier deficit projections are being pushed into future years as economic growth is declining....

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Simon Nixon says British prime minister, Cameron, has antagonized European leaders by making demands to protect Britain's financial industry. Ironically this happens as Britain was arguing for stricter financial regulation. Britain has been isolated and risks remaining on the sidelines from now on. Nixon says this starts a process that could lead to Britain withdrawing from the European Union.

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Anne Applebaum describes comments of European diplomats she talked to who were strongly critical of British prime minister Cameron's efforts to win special protections for London's financial district, the City. They described this as petty, especially when the European negotiators were working to save the Euro currency. Sarkozy said recently that the British hate the euro, and have done little to help, and should shut up. And that is the sense today in European capitals even as Conservatives in Britain applaud Cameron's move. The result is to isolate Britain from the rest of Europe, even as Britain will be put in a position to having to play by rules set by the other 26 countries in the European Union, who are its main trading partner.

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The market shares of Hyundai, Kia, and VW have received a boost as the Detroit carmakers struggle. Kia and Hyundai have moved their market share from 5 in 2008 to 7.3% today, up by 2.3%. Hyundai had difficulty getting brand name recognition for quality and performance in prior years, but it has persevered. KIa and yundai spend more on incentives, $3200 in 2009 compared to $2000 in 2008 to attract first time buyers. To take into account the economc conditions Hyundai was the first to come up with the Hyundai Assurance Plan, which allows buywers who finance their purchase to return the cars if they lose their jobs. Once these buyers try the Korea cars the ope is that they will see that the quality is on par with the Americans and the Japannese for a lower price, or even exceeds them. The Korean carmakers have worked hard on improving quality. In 2009 Hyundai won the North American Car of the Year award at the Detroit Auto Show for the Genesis luxury car. VW is also gaining market share this year. VW's market share is up to 2% from 1.5% in 2008. Aggressive marketing of the Jetta has moved its sales by 8.3% in May. Some of this market share is coming from Japanese carmakers....

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France has a large public sector which gives it protection in this crisis from mounting job losses. According to the OECD France had91 public sector jobs for every 1000 peopple compared to 49 for Germany. Public spending is 52.4% of GDP in 2007, compared with 44.4% for the UK, and 37.4% for the USA, according to the OECD. Still the unemployment rate is rising. The unemployment rate was 7.9% in November 2009.

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Spain's prime minister Mariano Rajoy repeats his request that the $125 billion from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the eurozone rescue fund, be sent directly to recapitalize Spanish banks, instead of being sent to the Spanish government. Capital markets did not respond positively to the aid announcement and Spain's 10 year bonds yields were close to 7%, one point higher than before the aid announcement. Rajoy told the other leaders at the G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, that it is necessary "to break the link between risk in the banking sector and the sovereign risk," according to a Spanish official. The European Commission and some EU governments support this, but Germany remains opposed to such a move. Spain paid higher rates on 3.04 billion euros in short term debt financed on June 19, 2012. Spain plans to sell 2 billion euros of two, three and five year bonds on June 21. Part of the problem for investors is the lack of clear accounting and transparency of the total debt of regional governments in Spain, and bad loans at banks, which it is feared could be much larger than the $125 billion in rescue funds from the EFSF. This is a result of the housing and asset bubble in Spain of the last two decades since joining the EU. The $125 billion would take Spanish debt to GDP ratios to 90%, which is lower than Italy's but comes at a time of unemployment at over 25% and a declining GDP, increasing investor uncertainty....