Bob:

The issue is: How to define the problem, mission, goal?

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports on May 3, 2010:

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89003

"Over the past two weeks about 100 families have left Marjah in Helmand Province, and sought refuge in the provincial capital Lashkargah, according to aid workers.

“People are fleeing from Marjah out of fear and insecurity,” Ahmadullah Ahmadi, president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) office in Helmand, told IRIN.

“The Taliban are harassing people. Their war is not over but has just started,” said Ghulam Farooq Noorzai, provincial director of the refugee affairs department, adding that they were using civilians as human shields in sporadic attacks on Afghan and foreign forces.

Noorzai said his department had registered the return, to the Nad Ali District of Helmand which includes Marjah, of 974 families over the past two months, but that over 2,800 families were still in Lashkargah. "

Marjah is only won when at least 20,000 of its stable population has returned, is functioning in a normal, secure manner (whatever that means).

Any other measure only demonstrates that we can kill the patient to cure the disease, and destabilize others, drive insurgency through tens of thousands of displaced young men with no other future, and wait to see what happens next.

We won the battle for Marjah 3, but "we" can't win the war, either in Marjah, Helmand or Afghanistan if the "price" of victory is so high on the people of Marjah. When does fair, legitimate, and reasonably effective governance accepted by the people get established?

Want to hold a jirga with Marjah residents? Go to Lashkar Gah and Nad Ali (where the majority of Marjah's population have been refugees since February).

It is just starting, and a long way from a measurable result among "the people."

Stability is easily measured by traffic, trade, relatively free movement, tax collection willingly flows to government/community, and an economy no longer solely dependent of COIN/FID handouts (or the Taliban taxes).

When the majority of the population has returned, commerce and civil life has stabilized, and is beginning to develop sustainable self-governance, we should put a thermometer in the patient to judge recovery.

My opinion.

Steve

PS- I knew that Baghdad was returning to some reasonable stability in June 2008, simply by driving around town in an unmarked old Buick watching street life and trade return. Danger was, and remains high, but "stability" (albeit at security levels unacceptable to some) was returned. (This while Mosul, Diyala and many other places were still in open and activity danger.)

What is the corollary measure from Marjah?