The death toll for American troops in Afghanistan has reached a hundred, as a soldier died from a traffic accident. In addition, since October, 2001, nearly a thousand American troops have been injured or getter seriously sick from local diseases. Only thirty of the deaths in Afghanistan were in combat, which makes it tough for journalists to use the "bloodbath" angle to criticize US operations in the country. Instead, the favorite angle is that "American strategy is failing", followed by lurid descriptions of Afghan life. But the heavily armed tribes have been up in the hills for thousands of years, fighting among themselves and attacking outsiders. The only things that have changed in the past two years is that al Qaeda can no long operate openly and the central government is pro-American.  But that isn't news.