CentCom leader David Petraeus fainting spell made the headlines yesterday as he spoke before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but anybody taking the time to read the news coming out of Afghanistan has to be shaken by the latest developments there, where the U.S. still hasn't finished sending troops to complete the escalation announced last year by President Obama.

The ranking Republican, John McCain of Arizona, said the latest trends are decidedly negative, and called the situation a "mounting crises."

"The larger trend that underlies all the others [is] the mounting loss of confidence in America's commitment to succeed that seems to be shared by both our friends and enemies in Afghanistan, as well as its neighbors," Mr. McCain said.

Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin from Michigan said he was concerned that the training of Afghan troops was moving too slowly (shades of Iraq).

“What is disturbing and hard to comprehend is that the training mission still does not have enough trainers to process all the Afghan recruits who are signing up to join in the security forces,” Mr. Levin said.

The Wall Street Journal quotes a "Western diplomat" who says that the Obama administration needs to spend the rest of this year better managing expectations about what can be accomplished there.

"Had you gone at the start of the year expecting, yes, Marjah will now be this bustling, thriving safe place and Kandahar will be a city transformed, it was unrealistic to think that was going to happen by December of this year," said the diplomat.

In areas near Marjah secured earlier last year violence is down sharply and coalition forces are well into the "build" phase of their operations. "If you were to look at what they have done—the areas they have cleared and gone into, it's quite impressive," said a senior U.S. military official.

More bad news : Two U.S. troops died this morning in Afghanistan, bringing to 30 the total death toll to 30 this month there.