Friday, February 5, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan —
Military operations usually are intended to catch the enemy off guard, but for weeks U.S. and allied officials have been telling reporters about their forthcoming assault on Marjah, a Taliban-held town of 80,000 and drug-trafficking hub in southern poppy-growing Helmand province.
Senior NATO commanders and top Afghan officials have openly discussed the approximate time of Operation Moshtarak — the Dari language word for "together" — the size of the force and their objectives in news conferences, interviews and press releases that have been disseminated around the world and posted on government Web sites. Leaflets have been airdropped on the town.
Though the exact time of the kickoff hasn't been disclosed, a "news article" posted Thursday on the British Ministry of Defense's site announced that operations involving "elements of the Royal Welsh, Grenadier Guards and Scots Guards" and Afghan forces "in preparation" for the Marjah attack had been underway for 36 hours.
"We're not interested in how many Taliban we kill. We'd much rather have them see the inevitability that things are changing," he said. "And that's why it is a little unconventional to do it this way. But I think it gives everybody a chance to think through what they're going to do before suddenly in the dark of night, they're hit with an offensive."
read more:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/83858.html____________________________________________________
My opinion on the broadcasting and notification of NATO's coming assault on Marjah is mixed. The telegraphing can certainly be viewed with cynicism as a mere attempt to appear compliant with the Geneva accords in anticipation of 'collateral' civilian casualties.
I suspect, however, that the strategy of signaling their advance on Taliban-held territory is just another act in the Kabuki play that's the Obama strategy for 'succeeding' in Afghanistan. The limited, tentative NATO forces -despite their escalation- cannot expect to hold any territory they clear of resistant Afghans indefinitely. The plan is to clear and hold land and encourage whoever still dares to live there to line up behind our contrived, ephemeral line of defense and convince them to finish the fight we sparked on their own.
The obvious result will be a temporary lull in the resistance there (after bloody skirmishes and bombings) as the resistance fighters recede into the shadows and wait out our occupying forces with opportunistic attacks and deadly ieds. Nothing really changes on the ground except for a headline or two pointing to 'progress' in occupied territory.
Yet, this mission is actually designed more to influence the favor and confidence of Afghans for their NATO occupiers, than it is a primarily offensive one against the Taliban resistance; hence the advance warnings.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, senior commander of American and allied forces in Afghanistan, and defense secretary Gates, spoke to NATO officials at a meeting yesterday:
“If they (Taliban) want to fight, then obviously that will have to be an outcome,” General McChrystal said. “But if they don’t want to fight, that’s fine, too, if they want to integrate into the government.” Even so, the decision could give insurgents time to flee — and to set booby traps in advance of their departure.
“The biggest thing is in convincing the Afghan people,” General McChrystal said during a briefing for correspondents traveling with Mr. Gates. “
This is all a war of perceptions. This is not a physical war in terms of how many people you kill or how much ground you capture, how many bridges you blow up. This is all in the minds of the participants,” he says.
General McChrystal presents the decision to advertise the coming military assault on Marjah as a humanitarian gesture designed to coax reluctant fighters away from the militant fold. I think it reflects both the military's ambivalence about who the actual 'enemy' is that they're targeting, and their realization that they have a ridiculously (impossibly) small window to quell an insurgency and win over enough 'hearts and minds' who will assist in America's terror war.
The most certain result of the promised raid on Marjah will be an increase of casualties on all sides, with an almost certain rise in animosity toward the advancing NATO invaders. We'll take yet another town with specters of our al-Qaeda nemesis in our military's eyes - put down anything that moves against us - and call ourselves liberators.
"(McChrystal) said the decision to discuss the operation openly was a way of telling the people of Afghanistan of their government’s efforts to expand security where they live — and to tell the insurgents and narcotics traffickers “that it’s about to change.” The occupation of Afghanistan is nothing but another American protection racket where our forces stir up trouble and promise to protect the hapless folks in the way from the effects and consequences of our own blundering militarism.
And so it goes. Marjah=Fallujah
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