What do you call a tsunami that falls on a deserted island?

A seismic event.

George Will's call for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which surfaced on Aug. 31, seems to fit that category. It hit Washington when the chattering classes were at the beach, toughing out stay-cations or busy putting their kids in school.

So let's take another look.

Last September, when the military-media complex was all-atwitter with Bob Woodward's revelations of a revolution in counterterrorism methods, I found myself talking with a confidante of Gen. David Petraeus at an off-the-record cocktail hour.

Petraeus was then commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and was generally being credited with developing a breakthrough technology to find and track terrorist suspects that was so secret that Woodward couldn't reveal the details.

But according to my interlocutor, Petraeus, whom he had talked to hours earlier, gave complete credit for the counterterror revolution to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, for developing and running the program, which is still shrouded in mystery.

Special Forces troops tend to think they carry the fate of the world in their rucksacks.

In Pakistan, they may be right.

Years from now we may look back at the "secret" deployment of some 70 U.S. military advisers to Pakistan as a turning point in the global war on terrorism, the moment when a daring idea and brilliant execution snatched victory from a looming disaster.

Or the opposite: a Pakistani version of Ia Drang, the 1965 battle when North Vietnamese regulars showed they could go toe-to-toe with American troops, signaling a long, devastating and -- in that case -- losing war.

Make no mistake about it: Pakistan hangs in the balance.

The increasingly bold attacks on NATO supplies in Pakistan should be cause for serious worry, U.S. counterterrorism operatives are saying.

The attacks mean that Islamic extremist fighters in the region are adopting the tactics that their fathers and uncles employed more than a quarter century ago -- with CIA backing - to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

The objective: to choke off supplies to occupying troops on the ground.

"The bad guys understand our operations and what our lifelines are all about," said an analyst with counterterror experience in the region.

A former CIA operative's account of how the spy agency wreaked vengeance on him for his unauthorized expose of American bungling during the fall of Saigon is heading to the flat screen.