There is heavy security around Kabul.  A “ring of steel,” as they call it, which is under Afghan authority.  I’ve been driving around Kabul for several weeks and have never seen a foreign guard, and seldom see US or other forces on the roads.   I’ve been walking around town, shopping in shops and eating in restaurants.  All day yesterday and today I was out in the city with no weapon and no troops.   I wear Western clothes and sunglasses and seldom get an extra look while driving around in various sorts of taxis and private cars.  Expats are out past midnight at the few local restaurants that sell alcohol.  This is not Baghdad.  Fighting there was nearly constant and often sustained.  If this were Baghdad, I’d have been dead the first day.  Any ideas that Kabul is falling are remarkably wrong.  There are, however, some dangers and occasional suicide attacks that are nakedly designed to get press.