CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus, speaking today in Charlotte, North Carolina, warned that this year “is going to be a hard year” for the war in Afghanistan.

Gen. Petraeus’ comments were the latest in a long line of comments by him and others that the record 2009 violence in Afghanistan was going to once again give way to record violence in 2010.

But Petraeus also defended the war’s continuation, even though to his own admission the military had killed “boatloads of bad guys” to little effect. He insisted that 9/11’s ties to Afghanistan made it necessary to continue the war, already nine years in the fighting, to what he assured would be a “positive outcome.”

He insisted that the key was to reduce the number of civilian deaths, pointing to the invasion of Marjah as an example of the US saving a city from complete destruction. The invasion did, however, kill significant numbers of civilians.