"Afghanistan is ready to take overall security responsibility", says Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Technically, pulling US forces out of villages and putting them on bases isn't "pulling them out of Afghanistan." It just means the USA won't be able to fight a counterinsurgency and if things go south quickly, American forces could end up effectively isolated in their forts -- as the Taliban moves in to the vacated villages. It may essentially mean the same thing as pulling out of Afghanistan.

So... that's great news! I guess all the reports we've been hearing of Afghan troops' complete inability to engage the Taliban on their own, the ineffective training program, the defections... that's all just hyperbole. Well, thank goodness.

Because, if that stuff is true, 2013 may just be the year Karzai gets his throat slit at the same time that the carving up of Afghanistan begins in earnest.