Three years later, reporter returns to Musa Qala
With a sub-title:
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Three years after he first travelled to Musa Qala, Nick Meo returns to Afghanistan and finds a town fearful that Nato's war is not going well, and dreading what may happen when they leave.
A lengthy article and some key phrases:
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Insurgent control begins just a few miles from the town centre...Many of the attacks are thought to be paid for by drugs barons who flourish in the opium-rich region. Their business thrives when it is lawless and they want the foreign soldiers out.
Corporal Vincent Song, who is based next to the governor's compound, was appalled at the semi-secret meetings taking place there, as ex-Taliban fighters drink tea with the governor. "I don't agree with it at all. These are people who are trying to kill me," said Cpl Song, 21, from Washington, who joined up two years ago to fight terrorism. "So many of my brothers have died here. I hate the thought that the governor is meeting the Taliban."
A man identified to The Sunday Telegraph as a Taliban sympathiser, a mullah who attends meetings called shuras to find out what the marines are saying to the Afghans, insisted that the war would get worse before it got better.
"The police arrest the wrong men when bombs go off, and the foreigners kill innocent civilians," he said. "Then their cousins and friends want revenge and join the insurgency. "More clashes create more war, and the Taliban will not do deals to end the war. They want power again in all of Afghanistan. They have tasted its delights before and they want them again."
Says it all IMHO.:wry:
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...war-again.html
No more powerful statement than this right here...
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"They have tasted its delights before and they want them again."
...and is important that we take heed as we try to move forward. If the carrot does not produce the results desired, the answer is not always more carrots.
HBO documentary, The Battle for Marjah
Catching up after a gap and KOW recommends a HBO documentary, broadcast 23rd February, made by a British journalist, Ben Anderson:
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I watched the HBO documentary, The Battle for Marjah, last night and would recommend anyone interested in Afghanistan to see it. It is a fairly depressing tale. A Marine company is dropped into what appears to be the middle of a field outside Marjah. They quickly attract the attention of local villagers and others, but are unsure of how to act as they can’t distinguish friendlies from insurgents. Exposed and vulnerable from all sides, the Marines are, somewhat predictably, ambushed. They take cover as best they can, fight back and find refuge in a place that might offer a little more protection than the barren field, namely an inhabited house. The original residents are told to go elsewhere and the house is used as a base to hit back at the attackers. Yet the sense of vulnerability is still acute, as the new base is totally surrounded and could easily be breached.
Within a few days of grueling battle, the Marines actually make it into Marjah’s centre where they, having painstakingly ‘cleared’ the area, proceed to ‘hold’ and to ‘build’. The holding and building only last so long though, because the clearing appears to have been less than definitive and the company keeps losing Marines in firefights and explosions – and with it much of the morale generated during the clearing phase. Forced to retreat, and unable to get either the local or central government ‘out of the box’, the progress initially made seems to be unravelling. Despite an apparent lull in violence, the local population is angry at the instability that the offensive has wrought and seem to have preferred Taliban rule, if only for its predictability. The local security forces are too weak to take over and replicate that sense of predictability, so a local militia is recruited. Problematically, this ‘Home Guard’ are not at home at all, but from another region of Afghanistan, and there are signs of distrust and tension, never mind incompetence. Suffice to say that the final step, the ‘transition’ phase cannot proceed as planned. The documentary ends on a very downbeat note, suggesting that all of the Marines’ hard work and sacrifice seems to have produced much less than initially hoped for. Certainly, this offensive did not ‘break the back of the Taliban’, nor was it ‘decisive’ or a ‘turning-point’ in the campaign as promised by heads of state and senior commanders.
The documentary resonates with much of the fairly pessimistic coverage of the Afghan war and is definitely worth watching in full.
The article has a long critique of Tom Ricks too:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2011/02/hbo...n-afghanistan/
Link to HBO (not available in the UK alas):http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the.../synopsis.html
Anyone able to comment on the programme? Plus pointers to if it has appeared elsewhere for non-US viewers! Thanks.
Update: this HBO programme appears to be a re-titled edition of a BBC-TV Panorama documentary, which focussed on Sangin, not Marjah (thanks to a JMA posting on the UK in Afg thread and a link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A6AJteEwdg
Reports on the USMC in South Helmand
From my "armchair" a good article by Tim of FRI, maybe very tactical, but has some snippets of note.
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The only thing the local people of southern Helmand are concerned about, when it comes to Marines, is that they are going to leave soon. They would much rather see them stay - This is is told to me everywhere I go, and I go just about everywhere in this Province.
Earlier on:
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An ANP commander pointed out a village where his men have hit 3 IEDs in as many weeks and each time the villagers poured out with AK’s to start a firefight. So, a few nights later the Marines blow a controlled det on the road to simulate an IED hit and when the villains rushed out with their flame sticks they met what we lovingly call the ‘L shaped ambush’.
Anyway the link:http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=4352#comments
Thread title changed 2nd October 2011 to reflect next post.
