The Marines will get no extra troops, American or Afghan. In light of that they've asked if they can arm the locals ala SoI (another semantic story, by the way) - but whatever it might be called, so far the answer is also "no".

What do they get? They get one year to do what Marines do. I'll bet they're well aware of what they're doing, and quite adept at explaining it in the correct terms to media embeds.

To bring that more in line with the topic of this thread, hopefully few will get their names in the paper for all the wrong reasons. Apparently (from another account) one group of Taliban, cornered in a building with female hostages walked away dressed in Burkas as part of a deal to let those females go.

On a "positive" note re: numbers - not in that story, but meanwhile some in Britain are arguing they should send more troops and gear. Their Afghan death toll just exceeded Iraq, and that "more" argument is the opposition response.