I wanted to clarify the circumstances under which Gen. McChrystal’s command is/isn’t securing local buy-in for a prospective Kandahar operation, and so the general’s spokesman, Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, fielded some questions. An excerpt:

“We remain committed to political dialogue in Kandahar and elsewhere: through the discussions that coalition officials have with Afghans in shuras and meetings with Afghan officials, and through the discussions that Afghan officials have with other Afghans,” Sholtis said in an email. “No one of those events is decisive, but cumulatively they should help develop a measure of consensus on the way ahead — measured, as in most domestic policy decisions, with some respect for available numbers (polls, tallies of key community leaders) but largely through the judgment of Afghan government leaders and their coalition partners.”

There’s more, so read the whole thing.

Update, 2:01 p.m: Nathan Hodge gets ahold of a Kandahar survey from the Human Terrain System that suggests — to be a little reductive — little support for the operation.