McChrystal: 'Nobody Is Winning' Afghan War Yet

McChrystal Sees Progress, but 'Nobody Is Winning' Afghan War Yet

FOXNews.com

The assessment by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, comes a day after President Obama predicted the war will get worse before it gets better

In a blunt assessment of the war in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal declared in a TV interview Thursday that "nobody is winning," though he also pointed to progress in stopping the momentum of insurgents.

The assessment by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, comes a day after President Obama, while hosting Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House, predicted the war will get worse before it gets better.

McChrystal was responding to a question posed in an interview that aired on PBS' "News Hour." "I think I would be prepared to say nobody is winning, at this point," McChrystal said. "Where the insurgents, I think, felt that they had momentum a year ago, felt that they were making clear progress, I think that's stopped."

Now it is the U.S. and Afghan forces that have "made a lot of progress," he said.
"I think the insurgency is serious. And it's serious because it has a relative reach around the country ... so it can bring a lot of violence on the Afghan people. It's also not popular."

U.S. and Afghan forces are coming off the relative success of a major offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah intended to sweep the enemy out of that region and restore stability to the local population. A similar approach is planned later this year for Kandahar.

On Wednesday, Obama spoke with Karzai at his side.

"What I've tried to emphasize is the fact that there is going to be some hard fighting over the next several months," Obama told reporters in the White House after meeting with Karzai in the Oval Office.

"There is no denying the progress," Obama said. "Nor, however, can we deny the very serious challenges still facing Afghanistan."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Marjah deemed 'succces" (nothing new to Marines)

U.S. Calls Marja Offensive A Success

But concerns remain about shoring up local government throughout Afghanistan, officials say. The Marja campaign offers lessons for the upcoming U.S. offensive in Kandahar.

By Julian E. Barnes
Los Angeles Times
May 7, 2010

Washington DC--The U.S.-Afghan military operation in Marja succeeded in securing the town, but American officials said Thursday that steep challenges remain to improving local government functions throughout Afghanistan.

Senior U.S. diplomats and military officers said developing stronger governments would require a greater number of capable Afghan officials.

The assessment of the Marja operation, which began in February, came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepared to travel to Washington next week. Karzai has recently sounded more equivocal in his position on U.S. operations, including an expected offensive in Kandahar.

But Pentagon officials hope the upcoming visit will be a chance for the U.S. to improve relations with Karzai and solidify his support for the U.S. and allied strategy.

Lawmakers, military officers and other officials are looking closely at the Marja campaign and its aftermath for lessons that can be applied to the upcoming offensive in Kandahar.

As they did in Marja, U.S. officials will try to build up and improve local government in Kandahar concurrently with military operations in the city, pushing out some corrupt officials and replacing them with technocrats.

But the Taliban has begun an assassination campaign in Kandahar, using motorcycle teams to target U.S.-backed Afghan government officials, Frank Ruggiero, the senior State Department representative in southern Afghanistan, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Appearing alongside Ruggiero, Brig. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., who directs the Pentagon's Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell, called Marja a "work in progress, but trending in the right direction."

"It's not the enemy that concerns me as much as this ability of the government to connect with the people," Nicholson said.

Ruggiero said security concerns continued to hamper the development of local government.

Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey Jr., speaking earlier to reporters, compared Marja to Fallouja, the Iraqi city that U.S. forces retook from insurgents in 2004. Rebuilding Fallouja's government took three years, he noted.

"You just don't build effective governance in two months," he said.

Hard Choices in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, The Choice Is Ours

By Richard N. Haass
New York Times
August 21, 2009

SPEAKING on Monday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, President Obama could not have been more definitive. “We must never forget,” he said of the conflict in Afghanistan. “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.”

The president did not break new ground so much as reinforce existing policy. Earlier this year, he decided to send an additional 17,000 combat soldiers and 4,000 trainers to Afghanistan, raising American force levels there to more than 60,000. And in March he articulated a broader mission: The United States would now “take the fight to the Taliban in the south and the east,” in effect making the United States a full party to Afghanistan’s civil war.

As a result, American soldiers are fighting the Taliban, partly to provide time and space while Afghan forces are better trained and partly to persuade some Taliban that resistance does not pay. Call it armed state-building.

But is Afghanistan a war of necessity? And if not — if in fact it is a war of choice — so what?

Wars of necessity must meet two tests. They involve, first, vital national interests and, second, a lack of viable alternatives to the use of military force to protect those interests. World War II was a war of necessity, as were the Korean War and the Persian Gulf war.

In the wake of 9/11, invading Afghanistan was a war of necessity. The United States needed to act in self-defense to oust the Taliban. There was no viable alternative.

Now, however, with a friendly government in Kabul, is our military presence still a necessity?

Of course, our interests in Afghanistan include making it difficult for Al Qaeda to mount operations from that country and limiting Taliban use of Afghan territory to destabilize neighboring Pakistan. Minimizing the chance of a terrorist attack on American citizens is vital, as is making sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

But even if the United States were to succeed in Afghanistan — with “success” defined as bringing into existence an Afghan government strong enough to control most of its territory — terrorists could still operate from there and would put down roots elsewhere. And Pakistan’s future would remain uncertain at best.

Moreover, there are alternatives to current American policy. One would reduce our troops’ ground-combat operations and emphasize drone attacks on terrorists, the training of Afghan police officers and soldiers, development aid and diplomacy to fracture the Taliban.

A more radical alternative would withdraw all United States military forces from Afghanistan and center on regional and global counterterrorism efforts and homeland security initiatives to protect ourselves from threats that might emanate from Afghanistan. Under this option, our policy toward Afghanistan would resemble the approach toward Somalia and other countries where governments are unable or unwilling to take on terrorists and the United States eschews military intervention.

Afghanistan is thus a war of choice — Mr. Obama’s war of choice. In this way, Afghanistan is analogous to Vietnam, Bosnia, Kosovo and today’s Iraq. Wars of choice are not inherently good or bad. It depends on whether military involvement would probably accomplish more than it would cost and whether employing force is more promising than the alternatives.

Making this assessment in Afghanistan is difficult. The Taliban are resourceful and patient and can use Pakistan as a sanctuary. It is not obvious that Afghans can overcome ethnic and tribal loyalties, corruption and personal rivalries. No matter who is declared the winner, yesterday’s election is almost certain to leave the country even more divided.

The risk of ending our military effort in Afghanistan is that Kabul could be overrun and the government might fall. The risk of the current approach (or even one that involves dispatching another 10,000 or 20,000 American soldiers, as the president appears likely to do) is that it might produce the same result in the end, but at a higher human, military and economic cost.

All of which makes Afghanistan not just a war of choice but a tough choice. My judgment is that American interests are sufficiently important, prospects for achieving limited success are sufficiently high and the risks of alternative policies are sufficiently great to proceed, for now, with Mr. Obama’s measured strategy. But the administration, Congress and the American people (who, recent polls suggest, are turning against the war) must undertake regular, rigorous assessments of whether these efforts are bearing fruit or are likely to. If it appears they are not, the president should roll back the combat role or withdraw militarily.

If Afghanistan were a war of necessity, it would justify any level of effort. It is not and does not. It is not certain that doing more will achieve more. And no one should forget that doing more in Afghanistan lessens our ability to act elsewhere, including North Korea, Iran and Iraq. There needs to be a limit to what the United States does in Afghanistan and how long it is prepared to do it, lest we find ourselves unable to contend with other wars, of choice or of necessity, if and when they arise.

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Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of “War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars.”

Low Vote = A Taliban Victory. A Low Vote So Far

Turnout Appears Low as Afghans Vote for President
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:41 a.m. ET

KABUL (AP) -- Taliban threats appeared to dampen voter turnout in the militant south Thursday as Afghans chose the next president for their deeply troubled country. Insurgents launched scattered rocket, suicide and bomb attacks that closed some polling sites.

Low turnout in the south would harm President Hamid Karzai's re-election chances and boost the standing of his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Turnout in the north appeared to be high, a good sign for Abdullah.

International officials have predicted an imperfect election -- Afghanistan's second-ever direct presidential vote -- but expressed hope that Afghans would accept it as legitimate, a key component of President Barack Obama's war strategy. Taliban militants, though, pledged to disrupt the vote and circulated threats that those who cast ballots will be punished.

A voting official in Kandahar, the south's largest city and the Taliban's spiritual birthplace, said voting appeared to be 40 percent lower than during the country's 2004 presidential election. The official asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to release turnout figures. Associated Press journalists reported low turnouts in Kabul compared with longer lines seen in the 2004 vote.

Scattered reports of violence trickled in from around the country. Security companies in the capital reported at least five blasts, and Kabul police exchanged fire for more than an hour with a group of armed men; two suicide bombers died in the clash, police said. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed that five gunmen were fighting with police.

Karzai, dressed in his traditional purple-and-green-striped robe, voted at 7 a.m. at a Kabul high school. He dipped his index finger in indelible ink -- a fraud prevention measure -- and held it up for the cameras. Presidential palace officials released a rare photo of Karzai's wife casting her vote.

"I request that the Afghan people come out and vote, so through their ballot Afghanistan will be more secure, more peaceful" Karzai said. "Vote. No violence."
Karzai, who has held power since the Taliban was ousted in late 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion, is favored to finish first among 36 official candidates, although a late surge by Abdullah could force a runoff if no one wins more than 50 percent.
Preliminary results were expected to be announced in Kabul on Saturday.

The top U.N. official in the country, Kai Eide, acknowledged scattered attacks but said the election "seems to be working well." A U.N. spokesman said there were no early reports of widespread irregularities, though ahead of the vote, the country had been buzzing with rumors of ballot-stuffing, bogus registrations and trafficking in registration cards on behalf of Karzai -- allegations his campaign has denied.
Presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost, who had 10 percent support in pre-election polls, said he washed off the supposedly indelible ink and called on authorities to "immediately stop this election."

"This is not an election, this is a comedy," Bashardost said.

Militants carried out a string of assaults around the country. In northern Baghlan province, insurgent attacks closed 14 polling sites, and the police chief of Old Baghlan city and several police were killed, said Abdul Malik, the provincial election director.

''Some of the stations are open, with the presence of our personnel, but there is no one coming to vote. I told them to wait until the end of the day before coming back,'' Malik said.

An AP reporter in southern Helmand province said more than 20 rockets had landed in the capital of Lashkar Gah, including one near a line of voters that killed a child.

A blast at a high school in Kabul serving as a polling center wounded an election monitor and briefly shut down voting, an election observer named Ezatullah said. Abdullah Azizi, a 40-year-old teacher, said he was at Abdul Hai Habibi school when the explosion occurred.

''We don't care about these blasts,'' Habibi said after voting reopened. ''The women were afraid when they heard the explosion, but now I'm going to tell them come here.''

Because of Foreign Ministry order that asked news organizations to avoid ''broadcasting any incidence of violence'' during voting, Afghan officials were reluctant to confirm violence.

At a high school in eastern Kabul, election workers were ready at 7 a.m., but no one was there.

Abdul Rahman, 35, who stood outside one polling center, said he and his friends would vote but were waiting to see others do it safely first.

In the Helmand province town of Dahaneh -- a former Taliban stronghold until
U.S. troops invaded this month -- U.S. Marines delivered presidential ballots in two helicopters just after noon.

The next president will lead a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government. Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan in the last three years, and the U.S. now has more than 60,000 forces in the country close to eight years after the U.S. invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Karzai, a favorite of the Bush administration, won in 2004 with 55.4 percent of the vote, riding into office on a wave of public optimism. As the U.S. shifted resources to the war in Iraq, Afghanistan fell into steep decline, marked by record opium poppy harvests, deepening government corruption and skyrocketing violence.
Karzai has sought to ensure his re-election by striking alliances with regional power brokers, naming as a running mate a Tajik strongman and welcoming home notorious Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Voter turnout in the insurgency-plagued Pashtun south is not only crucial to Karzai's chances but also to public acceptance of the results. Karzai is widely expected to run strong among his fellow Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group that also forms the overwhelming majority of the Taliban.

Abdullah, who is part Tajik, is expected to win much of his votes in the Tajik north, where security is better.

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Associated Press reporters Amir Shah, Fisnik Abrashi, Heidi Vogt and Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Noor Khan in Kandahar and Alfred de Montesquiou in Dahaneh contributed to this report.

Afghanistan's Future, from Karzai's Chief Opponent

How Afghans Can Build A Better Future

By Ashraf Ghani
Financial Times
August 13, 2009

((The writer is a candidate in next week's Afghan presidential election))

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, yet it is rich in resources and potential. The upcoming elections are an opportunity for Afghans to elect a government that is committed economic growth for all, and to replacing the current predatory regime where wealth accrues to a few corrupt cronies.

From energy and agriculture to mining and construction, the country possesses the resources for robust and sustained development for decades to come. With a regional co-operation framework, Afghanistan can become a strategic land-bridge for goods, services and oil pipelines between south Asia, central Asia, the Middle East and China.

In a semi-arid region, water is everything. Afghanistan produces 80bn cubic metres of water each year, but only taps 20bn for irrigation, drinking and hydropower. The Amu River, shared with central Asian neighbours, alone has the potential to produce 10,000 megawatts of electricity a year.

As power is the critical driver of development, a regional partnership on energy initiatives could serve as the foundation stone for wider regional economic co-operation. Afghanistan sees potential electricity market partners through an electricity grid joining China, central Asia, Pakistan, Iran and eventually India.

Unfortunately, the corruption of the current regime has allowed drug trafficking to flourish across borders instead. In turn, the booming opium and heroin trade has funded the expansion of the insurgency and crippled the economy. The threat of drugs will only be eliminated when Afghan agriculture develops. Rural farmers will turn away from poppies if their incomes from staple crops rise from the current level of $1 a day to $4. That is an achievable goal for the near future, involving investment in irrigation, technology and education. In the short-term, Nato forces present a large potential purchaser and an opportunity to turn Nato into a friend of the Afghan farmer. In addition, European Union trade preferences for Afghan agriculture could provide an enormous boost for our farmers.

Afghanistan is also rich in mineral resources. US Geological Survey reports have confirmed extensive deposits of copper, gold, gas, iron and barite, as well as gemstones such as emeralds, lapis lazuli and rubies. A mining-based economy is therefore a real medium-term alternative to the current drug-based economy.

Both sectors will depend on a reliable transport network to ensure on-time and safe deliveries. Investing in roads and railways to link the major mines in southern and central areas of the country to potential markets in the region and to China is essential.

Creating a competitive national construction industry is a prerequisite for effective utilisation of domestic resources. Fortunately it is the sector able to create the greatest number of jobs immediately. Critically, it will also make foreign assistance four to nine times more effective. With a coherent infrastructure development plan, including my goal of creating 1m new homes, the Afghan construction industry can become a powerhouse for creating jobs and wealth.

Afghan entrepreneurs are not short of money, but withering security and growing corruption are forcing them to take their capital abroad. In the Gulf alone there is an estimated $16bn of Afghan money waiting to find outlets. The ministry of finance estimated, in March, that 70 per cent of potential domestic revenue is lost owing to corruption and mismanagement.

My vision of an inclusive, stable and prosperous Afghanistan is based on my experience as finance minister from 2002-04 when I worked to achieve lasting reforms. For example, in just two years we modernised communications in Afghanistan. Partnering with the minister of communications, I refused to offer sweetheart deal licences to private companies. Instead, we insisted they gain access to the Afghan market through a transparent bidding process. The number of mobile telephones in the country jumped from 100 in July 2002 to more than 1m at the end of 2005, and private investment in mobile phones exceeded $200m. A government committed to transparency, accountability and the rule of law can create a stable, business-friendly environment in Afghanistan.

The right government can help Afghanistan tap its potential. The Afghan people are ready to learn, work and do business with the world.

Giant IED's slowing Marines

Potent Bombs Slow Marine Offensive

Troops in Afghanistan Must Be Cautious on Long Stretches of Road Filled With Explosives

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post
August 11, 2009

MIANPOSHTEH, Afghanistan -- In this harsh and unforgiving part of southern Afghanistan, where thousands of U.S. Marines are battling the Taliban this summer, the growing prevalence of roadside bombs means that even a small mishap can have deadly consequences.

Made primarily of large quantities of homemade explosives, the bombs have killed at least a third of the 16 Marines who have died in Helmand since they launched their offensive in early July. The ever-present threat has made the U.S. push in the southern Helmand River valley tougher than U.S. commanders initially anticipated; Marines have seized vital crossroads and population centers, only to discover that Taliban insurgents had filled in the dirt roads behind and around them with bombs.

The bombs have forced Marine commanders to put long stretches of road off-limits, requiring troops to walk instead of drive. Marines on foot patrol must keep a keen eye out for dug-up dirt and "ant trails" that could cover a wire.

All of that has made for delays in supplying the troops -- and, as one Marine company discovered in late July when its mission went badly off-track, it has also required a diversion of manpower to the mundane b ut vital task of watching the roads, hoping to ambush anyone who attempts to plant a bomb.

"The explosion ripped the Humvee in half," whispered Lance Cpl. Jan Friis, 22, of Bethesda, whose best friend, Lance Cpl. Jeremy S. Lasher, was killed when a bomb blew to pieces the vehicle he was driving.

The attack that killed Lasher came on July 23, when a team from 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment had set out to recover a mine-resistant vehicle that had become stuck in a canal.

The Marines' Echo Company outpost is located in Mianposhteh, a cluster of villages deep in the Helmand River valley that is accessible only by two main roads. The roads are little more than dirt paths criss-crossed by a latticework of irrigation canals and ditches, too fragile to support the Marines' heavy armored vehicles, like the one that had become stuck.

Lasher, 27, of Oneida, N.Y., and three other Marines were returning from getting chains to tow the vehicle when the blast went off under their Humvee. Soon the word came over the radio: "Four urgent. Launch the birds."

When Lance Cpl. Kyle Castle arrived to help treat the casualties, the status had changed to "two urgent, two unknown." He asked Lance Cpl. Jeremy Dones where Lasher was, and Dones pointed to the other side of the canal, scattered with pieces of a flak vest and uniform. Castle, 24 of Everett, Wash., started to head across, but Dones just shook his head.

The gunner, Lance Cpl. Dominic Davila, had a shattered lower right leg. Castle and others had to hold Davila down to make sure the tourniquet that had been hastily applied was tight enough. Then, when lifting Davila onto the stretcher, Castle discovered another large hole in his left leg, and stuffed it with bandages to stop the bleeding. The treatment saved Davila's life, officers said later.

When Friis arrived to guard the area, Marines were searching for Lasher's body and loading Davila and two other wounded onto! a helicopter. Lance Cpl. Trevor Paar had been blown from the Humvee; he suffered a severe head injury but survived. But vehicle commander Cpl. Nicholas G. Xiarhos, 21, of Yarmouth Port, Mass., died soon afterward.

'Be Aggressive'

A few hours later, at a larger Marine base 15 miles north, 2nd Lt. Brendan J. Murphy was preparing for another precarious run transporting supplies to Mianposhteh. The trip was urgent. Echo Company was almost out of packaged meals known as Meals Ready to Eat, and was rationing food. Fuel was low.

Now Murphy was given an even more dangerous assignment: recover the vehicles at the bomb site.

At 4 the next morning, Murphy, a young officer with a shaved head and a face worn from stress, briefed the Marines in his convoy on what to expect.

"They know we're coming into the area to do the recovery," he said, predicting an attack near the bomb site. "Be aggressive on the weapons systems."

Murphy's plan was to situate part of the convoy on desert high ground in a 360-degree defense, ! not unlike a wagon train circled on the frontier, while he led a team to recover the destroyed Humvee. As a final caution, he had the Marines repeat in unison how to respond when an unknown vehicle approached. First came a verbal order to halt, followed by warning shots. Finally, at a certain proximity, they were authorized, in their words, to "waste" the driver.

As a pale pink spread across the sky, the convoy rolled out the gates of Forward Operating Base Delhi in a cloud of dust to cover what should have been a 15-mile trip south to the scene of the bombing, near Mianposhteh. But the circuitous journey took more than 16 hours. Forced to detour because of soft sand, the convoy didn't arrive until 9 a.m. After circling the vehicles, Murphy left to carry out the recovery mission half a mile away, while the rest of the Marines waited in the desert as the heat rose to 115 degrees.

Among those on watch were Lance Cpl. Leo Robinson, 22, of Elyria, Ohio, and Lance Cp! l. Michael Barton, 21, of Troy, Pa., both of whom had suffered from he atstroke in the initial days of fighting and were only now returning to their unit.

"I was in a machine-gun bunker. I felt numbness from head to toe, fell backwards, and my muscles seized up," Robinson said. After about three weeks of "light duty," he and Barton were deemed well enough to return to the front lines, but doctors warned that they would be more vulnerable to heatstroke in the future.

"It's killing me. It's too hot," Barton said as he sat in a seven-ton truck, staring out over the monotonous, disorienting expanse. At about 11:30 a.m., the call came to mount up and prepare to leave. Minutes later, a loud explosion rippled over the sand. Murphy's team, approaching the blast site, had been hit by a bomb.

Capt. David Snipes, commander of the battalion's weapons company, was inside the hulking mine-resistant vehicle when it struck the bomb. The impact was like "hitting a brick wall," Snipes recalled later. The vehicle reared up and crashed back down.

Making his way through choking dust to open the rear hatch, Snipes was amazed to see the vehicle's 50-caliber machine gun sitting in the sand. "The 50-cal somehow went from the mount, past [the gunner's] head, and landed behind us," said Snipes. Surprisingly, the gunner was not badly injured. Murphy and his crew soon began the painstaking work of loading the twisted skeleton of the Humvee onto a recovery vehicle, and hooking up the mine-resistant truck -- now useless and missing a front wheel -- to be towed.

Logistical Challenges
Standing by the wreckage the next morning, Murphy explained that while several vehicles have been destroyed this way, the logistical challenges mean that replacements are slowly arriving. Indeed, Castle said Lasher and the other Marines had had to ride in a Humvee because one of their team's mine-resistant vehicles had been disabled. "If they had been in an MRAP, they probably all would have survived," Castle said.

Even as losses from roadside bombs mount, Marine commanders know they can bypass main roads for only so long. It is a matter of time, they say, before insurgents target the desert routes and foot patrols. Ultimately, they know the solution lies in dismantling the networks of Taliban bombmakers, and that, in turn, will come only with help from a wary Afghan population.

For now, if units such as Echo Company want to travel even small stretches of road, they must commit to the manpower-intensive work of keeping watch 24 hours a day. As they scrutinized the moonlit road leading to the desert last week, Friis and the other Marines reflected with some bitterness over the loss of their friends, and questioned whether many Americans appreciate -- or even know of -- their daily grind in the windswept purgatory of Helmand.

"People need to know these guys were heroes. They were fighting so the people living in Potomac and Fairfax in their million-dollar houses don't have to," said Friis, a dark-haired, soft-spoken enlistee who is the dog handler for a bomb-sniffing black lab named Jenny.

Paar and Davila, who had a leg amputated, are recovering at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Xiarhos's wake was recently held in Massachusetts.

As for Lasher, hundreds of mourners lined the streets of Oneida when the motorcade returned his body Thursday, and later filled a church for his funeral on Saturday. "All he wanted in life was to be a good husband and a good father," Friis said of his buddy, who had a 1-year-old son born when Lasher was in Iraq. "He was the best person I've ever known."

McChrystal: Taliban is Winning

U.S. commander says Taliban have Afghan momentum

KABUL – The Taliban have advanced out of traditional strongholds in Afghanistan's south and east, gaining the upper hand as they moved into the north and west, the top U.S. and NATO commander said in an interview on Monday.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, who will soon present an assessment of the war, said the resurgent Taliban have forced a change of tactics on foreign forces and warned that record casualty figures would remain high for some months.

"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," McChrystal told The Wall Street Journal newspaper in an interview in Kabul. "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work."

Violence across Afghanistan this year had already reached its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led Afghan forces in 2001 and escalated dramatically after major offensives were launched in southern Helmand province in July.

Attacks have also become increasingly brazen, with suicide bombers and gunmen attacking government buildings, as well as Afghan and foreign and military targets, in the east and south in the past month.

With thousands of U.S. Marines and British soldiers aiming to push Taliban fighters out of populated areas in Helmand, July quickly became the deadliest month of the war for troops in the country.

At least 41 U.S. troops were killed in July, easily surpassing the previous highest monthly toll of 26 in September last year. At least 71 foreign troops were killed in July.

Britain has also suffered its worst battlefield casualties in almost a generation, with 22 killed in July, raising questions about whether its troops are adequately supplied, how long they will be in Afghanistan, or whether they should be there at all.

There are now about 101,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, with U.S. numbers at about 62,000. Washington has been pouring in thousands of extra troops this year, in part to help secure August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.

KANDAHAR

Washington plans to increase the number of its troops to about 68,000 by year's end, more than double the 32,000 it had stationed in Afghanistan at the end of 2008.

This includes several thousand designated to help train Afghan security forces, with some U.S. and other foreign commanders questioning the paucity of Afghan involvement in the Helmand campaigns so far.

McChrystal said he wanted a "very significant expansion" of the Afghan army and police, The Wall Street Journal reported.

McChrystal said he planned to push more troops into Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban adjacent to Helmand.

He said some 4,000 U.S. troops still to arrive would be deployed to Kandahar. "It's important and so we're going to do whatever we got to do to ensure Kandahar is secure," he said.

He defended the choice of Helmand to launch the attacks against the Taliban because it is Afghanistan's biggest producer of opium poppies which help fund the insurgency.
McChrystal also said some other troops would also be redeployed from sparsely populated areas to more heavily populated areas.

More Marines &soldiers for Afghanistan

Senators, Advisers Urge Obama To More Than Double Afghan Forces

By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
Reuters
August 5, 2009

President Barack Obama and top U.S. military commanders are being pressed by senators and civilian advisers to more than double the size of Afghan security forces, a move that would cost billions of dollars.

In letters and face-to-face meetings, the lawmakers and defense officials urged Obama, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan to boost the Afghan National Army and police from current levels of 175,000 to at least 400,000.

“Any further postponement” of a decision to support a surge in Afghan forces will hamper U.S. efforts to quell an insurgency in its eighth year, Senators Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, wrote to the White House in a July 21 letter obtained by Bloomberg News.

General Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, will recommend a speedier expansion of Afghan forces beyond current targets in an assessment he will give U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen by Aug. 14, according to a military official familiar with the review.

McChrystal won?t suggest in his report how many additional U.S. or NATO troops would be needed to train those Afghan forces or to boost the U.S. fighting effort, the official said. Any discussion of U.S. or NATO troops will come in the weeks after McChrystal?s assessment is submitted.

In a meeting last week with Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, the deputy national security adviser who oversees Afghan policy at the White House, Levin said a substantial expansion of Afghan forces is essential, according to his spokeswoman, Tara Andringa.

In a May 19 letter to Obama, 17 Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Levin, a Michigan Democrat, Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, urged a doubling of Afghan forces. They cautioned Obama against “taking an incremental approach” that “does not reflect the realities on the ground.”

The U.S. already has agreed to fast-track the buildup of combined Afghan security forces to 134,000 Army personnel and 96,800 police -- 230,800 in all -- by 2011, according to U.S. Central Command.

The Department of Defense has requested $7.5 billion for fiscal year 2010 to fund the expansion. Training and equipping 160,000 additional forces, as the lawmakers and officials are urging, would balloon costs and require thousands more foreign military advisers, a commitment the Obama administration has been reluctant to make.

Senators argued in their May letter that building Afghanistan?s own forces would be far cheaper than sending more U.S. soldiers. “For the cost of a single American soldier in Afghanistan, it is possible to sustain 60 or more Afghans,” the senators wrote.

A similar message was drummed home by a dozen civilian national security experts in meetings with McChrystal and in a written report they gave him after a month in Afghanistan assessing ground conditions.

McChrystal asked the analysts from the secretary of defense?s office, the Congressional Research Service, Washington research institutions, the European Union and a French think tank for help in preparing his assessment.

The calls for the administration to raise the targets for more Afghan forces echo comments to reporters last month by Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of U.S. Marines leading an offensive in Afghanistan?s Helmand province. He said he was “not going to sugarcoat it. The fact of the matter is we don?t have enough Afghan forces” partnering with U.S. troops.

More Afghan troops would bolster U.S. efforts to conduct joint operations, said Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander for NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan, where the U.S. is the lead nation in the coalition.

“I do see a need for a greater capacity within the Afghan national security forces,” Scaparrotti told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday via video link from Afghanistan. “General McChrystal has stated we look at not only building their competency but building their capacity at a quicker pace.”

Lieberman, who has long advocated an expansion of Afghan forces, said the commitment “is a decision that we have avoided making for far too long.”

“Every day we continue to drag our feet and fail to commit to the indigenous security forces” hinders the fight against extremists and delays the pullout of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Lieberman told Bloomberg News in a statement last month.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert, predicts doubling the size of the Afghan Army would likely be a five-year, $25 billion commitment that would require 12,000 U.S. military trainers. Those troops would have to be reassigned from other duties.

The realization in Washington “of the scope and scale of what would be required in Afghanistan is frankly causing waves,” said Nagl, a member of the Defense Policy Board that advises the secretary of defense. He is president of the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

“The national security community, broadly speaking, recognizes the importance of a much larger Afghan Army” as a prerequisite for an eventual exit by U.S. troops, said Nagl. “The administration has not yet decided to pursue that path.”

Jones, Obama?s national security adviser, in June said the president?s strategy to boost civilian assistance should be given time to work before further commitments are made.

In February and March, Obama pledged 17,000 additional U.S. ground troops and 4,000 trainers, all of whom will be deployed by the end of September, said Major John Redfield, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command.

There are 63,000 U.S. troops and 40,500 non-U.S. NATO forces in Afghanistan, the highest number since the war to oust the Taliban regime began in 2001.

"A refrigerator away from paradise" Marines in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, A Battle To Win Locals' Confidence
Taliban strongholds test Marines' security plan
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today
August 3, 2009

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Marine Staff Sgt. Michael Garrett sprints through a cloud of smoke and dust raised by the blast from a buried bomb.Somewhere nearby he hears a Marine cry out: "Casualties! Casualties!" Garrett arrives at the outer wall of a housing compound and finds some of his men sprawled on the ground. Others stumble around, shell-shocked from the blast, temporarily unable to hear their own voices.

No one is badly hurt, but Garrett recognizes that Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines is in for a long, hot day. "Hopefully, everybody gets out of here alive today," he mutters.

A few miles away, but seemingly a world apart, sits another walled cluster of homes. Here, the Marines arrive the next day to a reception that may not be warm, but isn't lethal. Afghans talk with Marines; children beg them for sweets. A villager notices Marines hoisting themselves over a wall, gets their attention, and points out a shortcut.

The contrast between the two housing compounds in Afghanistan's Helmand River valley, a longtime stronghold of the Taliban militant group, illustrates the challenges facing Marines as they implement a new strategy that emphasizes winning the trust of the local population.

Using some of the 21,000 extra troops that President Obama has ordered to Afghanistan this year, the Marines are setting up small patrol bases in far-flung areas that largely had been neglected during the first seven years of the war.

By providing security, rather than just focusing on killing insurgents, the Marines hope to convince locals to turn on the Taliban and eventually hand control over to the Afghan army and police — mirroring the tactics that helped turn the war in Iraq a few years ago.

"We win when the people really believe that the government is here to help them," says Lt. Col. Christian Cabaniss, the battalion commander. "We can't kill our way out of an insurgency. All security does is create a vacuum. It takes the Taliban out. We'll show them that our brand of security is a lot nicer than the Taliban's."

Yet, some areas of Afghanistan have been so lawless for so long that it's extremely difficult for the Marines to establish that first critical point of contact. They're encountering armed resistance in some cases, and an equally formidable foe — fear — in others.

Hours after Garrett's unit came under attack, an Afghan man in the same troubled compound sought Garrett's help filing a claim for damages that a bomb had caused to his home. It was exactly the sort of conversation that can help forge a longer-term relationship, but it took place deep inside the man's courtyard — because the man fears the Taliban would behead him if they knew he was talking to Americans, Garrett says.

Trouble spots can be especially hard for the Marines to identify because they often co-exist with relatively peaceful areas — as happened with the two unnamed compounds that Garrett's unit encountered near the village of Hassan Abad, about 400 miles southwest of Kabul.

In an insurgency, "every village has its own microclimate," says John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

Nagl says control of a particular area — "even (a) neighborhood or street," he says — can hinge on a variety of factors including how long Afghan security forces have been there, whether there are any insurgent bases nearby, and even what tribe the local population belongs to.

At the safer housing compound, locals seem to understand why the Americans are there. Many even feel safe enough to approach them and ask for medical help.

"This is God's will that they come here for our security," says Abdul Ali, 50. "We don't like the Taliban. Whoever can bring us peace is who we want."

Down the road at the troubled compound, the Marines believe the Taliban have been active for a longer period of time, says Capt. Junwei Sun, 31, Fox Company commander.

The Marines are racing to learn more — taking photos, iris scans, fingerprints, and names of the compound's residents to compile a database of suspected insurgents, just as was done in troubled areas of Iraq.

Ultimately, though, the best intelligence likely will come from whatever Garrett and his men are able to glean while headquartered at their new patrol base nearby.

Almost 'paradise'
The "Jugroom" base is a fortress made up of fabric and steel-mesh cylinders of packed soil and rock called Hescos. The floor is gravel. Temperatures routinely soar above 120 degrees, drawing Marines in their downtime to cool off in the irrigation ditch that runs through their outpost.

There's no TV, no Internet, and they line up to make brief calls home by satellite phone. There's one hot meal a day, the remainder are packaged Meals Ready to Eat (MREs).

It's not an easy life, and the Marines seem to revel in it.

"We're a refrigerator away from paradise," Garrett says.

Well before dawn, Fox Company and a group of Afghan soldiers under Garrett's command rouse themselves for a march toward a group of homes near the village of Hassan Abad. Intercepted communication from the Taliban suggest they're waiting to attack, Garrett says.

The Marines are particularly exposed during such missions — the paths in this area appear too small for a Humvee, much less Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), the armored trucks designed to help troops withstand roadside bombs.

"At home, we trained up for 50% vehicle, 50% foot patrols," says Gunnery Sgt. Denis Desmarais, 29, an explosives expert. "Here, it's 90% on foot."

At 6:50 a.m., as Marines approach the compound, they hear the first blast from an improvised explosive device (IED).

Bursts of gunfire erupt. Some rounds are close enough for Garrett to order his men to take cover. A half-hour later, the bomb explodes that dazes his men.

In all that day, the Marines find five IEDs, made of fertilizer and fuel and triggered remotely by copper wires buried in hard-packed dirt. One of the bombs, evidently designed to kill Marines scrambling to rescue victims of the first, fails to detonate. It's uncovered by explosive ordnance technicians, hacking through the dirt with hunting knives.

"This place is just riddled with IEDs," says Sun, the Company commander. "Every time we come here we get shot at."

In other areas of Afghanistan — such as Jalalabad, where the U.S. military has made significant inroads and Afghan security forces are better established — locals often provide tips as to where IEDs are hidden.

Until that kind of trust takes root elsewhere in the country, though, the danger will remain high: At least 43 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan in July, making it the deadliest month of the entire war. Three more U.S. troops died in a militant ambush in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, bringing the U.S. death toll for August to six, the Associated Press reported.

For Garrett's platoon, the attacks end by mid-morning, allowing Marines and Afghan soldiers to conduct house-to-house searches for bomb-making equipment. Many of the residents say they knew about the bombs, and where they were planted, but wouldn't tell Marines because they feared retaliation from the Taliban.

An elderly man trembles as he tells this to Garrett through an interpreter.

"Yeah, I know," Garrett tells his interpreter. "Nobody sees anything."

'We'll have to kill them'

Some militants will be easier to convince to lay down their weapons than others, Sun says. Some of them are paid by the Taliban to attack U.S. and Afghan troops, he says. In other cases, parents are compelled, through death threats, to have their sons join the fight. Those are the types who often will switch sides if security can be established, Sun says.

"There is a handful of extremists you can't flip," Sun says. "We'll have to kill them."

There are some potential glimpses of a brighter future. When Garrett's unit sets out on its mission to the calmer compound, the troops charged with looking for IEDs with handheld metal detectors are able to quickly find a clear path. There were times the day before that they couldn't take a step without hearing beeps indicating the buried metal of bombs' trigger wires.

The troops quickly cross fields of corn, flooded paddies of rice and gardens filled with ripening tomatoes, okra and melons. Children drive sheep and goats to pens and pull cows to pasture. A man tends a field with hundreds of chest-high marijuana plants. The Marines laugh and snap pictures. It's hardly the Welcome Wagon, but residents don't seem hostile.

"I like the Afghan soldiers," says Sardar Mohammed, 10. "I don't like the U.S. They fight, but there is no clear effect."

The boy's criticism amuses Garrett. He's pleased the child views the Afghan soldiers positively. "It's their country," Garrett says. "They'll have to take care of it."

Next door, Abdul Ali, the boy's neighbor, clasps Garrett's hand and thanks him.

Meanwhile, work is underway to buttress the improving relationships with economic aid. Cabaniss, the battalion commander, points to a project, funded with $20,000 from emergency funds, that allowed the local government to unplug a sluice gate and improve irrigation around the town of Garmsir.

More Afghan forces needed

Time may be running out for such efforts to take hold, says Arturo Munoz, a expert on Helmand province at the RAND Corp., a think tank.

"In southern Helmand today, the central government has one last chance to get it right and provide law and order to the citizens of this region," Munoz says. "If it fails in this mission, then the ultimate objectives of this (Marine) campaign in Helmand likely will not be met."

There are about 10,000 Marines in Helmand, 4,000 of whom are involved in the offensive. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and member of the Armed Services Committee, says the current U.S. strategy is sound but manpower is still short. "One element that is in short supply is Afghan soldiers," he says.

Cabaniss and Col. George Amland, deputy commander of the Marines in Helmand, acknowledge that there aren't enough Afghan security forces involved as of now. About 650 soldiers took part as Marines swept south into the province July 2, and reinforcements are promised.

The Afghan soldiers who are present often need training. Garrett's men were accompanied by an Afghan unit led by 1st Lt. Saifur Rahman, 22, as they searched houses. They appeared willing to fight, though Rahman complained during the first patrol that his men didn't have time to break for lunch. Rahman says he joined the Afghan army because he couldn't find another job.

On the second day, one Afghan soldier fired warning shots at what turned out to be a family heading to a wedding party. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, has put renewed emphasis eliminating civilian deaths, which he said eroded support for the government in years past.

Garrett barked at the Afghan soldiers: "No more shooting. No more."

Unlike the previous day's 10-hour marathon, this patrol ends before lunch. No shots were fired at U.S. or Afghan troops, and they don't find any IEDs. They return to their base. There, they'll have time to eat and check their gear.

"We'll send them back on patrol later," Garrett says. "No days off here."

Muslim Extremists vs. West; Losing, But Still Here

The Losers Hang On
By Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
July 26, 2009

Jalozai Camp, Pakistan--After spending a week traveling the frontline of the “war on terrorism” — from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to northern Iraq, to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan — I can comfortably report the following: The bad guys are losing.

Yes, the dominos you see falling in the Muslim world today are the extremist Islamist groups and governments. They have failed to persuade people by either their arguments or their performances in power that their puritanical versions of Islam are the answer. Having lost the argument, though, the radicals still hang on thanks to gun barrels and oil barrels — and they can for a while.

Because, while the radicals have failed miserably, our allies — the pro-Americans, the Muslim modernists, the Arab moderates — have not really filled the void with reform and good government of their own. They are winning by default. More on that later.

For now, though, it is obvious that everywhere they have won or seized power, the Islamists — in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon or Gaza — have overplayed their hands, dragged their societies into useless wars or engaged in nihilistic violence that today is producing a broad backlash from mainstream Muslims.

Think of this: In the late-1970s, two leaders made historic trips — President Anwar Sadat flew from Egypt to Israel and Ayatollah Khomeini flew from Paris to Tehran. For the last 30 years, politics in the Middle East and the Muslim world has, in many ways, been a struggle between their competing visions.

Sadat argued that the future should bury the past and that Arabs and Muslims should build their future based on peace with Israel, integration with the West and embracing modernity. Khomeini argued that the past should bury the future and that Persians and Muslims should build their future on hostility to Israel, isolation from the West and subordinating modernity to a puritanical Islam.

In 2009, the struggle between those two trends tipped toward the Sadatists. The fact that Iran’s ruling theocrats had to steal their election to stay in power and forcibly suppress dissent by millions of Iranians — according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Iran has surpassed China as the world’s leading jailer of journalists, with 41 now behind bars — is the most visible sign of this. The Taliban’s burning down of secular schools that compete with its mosques, and its peddling of heroin to raise cash, are also not exactly signs of intellectual triumph.

The same day that President Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo University, Osama bin Laden released a long statement on Islamic Web sites and on Al Jazeera. As the Egyptian Middle East expert Mamoun Fandy noted: “Obama beat Osama hands down. Ask anyone about the content of Obama’s speech and they will tell you. Ask them what Osama said and most people will say, ‘Did he give a speech?’”

In Iraq’s elections last January, nationalist and moderate Muslim parties defeated the sectarian, radical religious parties, while in Lebanon, a pro-Western coalition defeated one led by Hezbollah.

Here in Pakistan, the backlash against the Taliban has been building among the rising middle class. It started in March when a mobile-phone video of a teenage girl being held down and beaten outside her home by a Taliban commander in Pakistan’s Swat Valley spread virally across this country. In May, the Pakistani Army began an offensive against Taliban militants who had taken control of key towns in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and appeared to be moving toward the capital, Islamabad.

I followed Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he visited a vast, choking-hot and dust-covered refugee tent camp in Jalozai, where some 116,000 refugees have fled the NWFP, as the Pakistani Army moved into their hometowns to smash the Taliban in a popular operation.

“People are totally against them, but the Taliban don’t care,” a Pakistani teacher, Abdul Jalil, 41, told me while taking a break from teaching the Urdu alphabet to young boys in a sweltering tent. “They are very cruel. They chopped people’s heads off.”

To the extent that the radical Islamists have any energy today, it comes not from the power of their ideas or examples of good governance, but by stoking sectarian feuds. In Afghanistan, the Taliban play on Pashtun nationalist grievances, and in Iraq, the Sunni jihadists draw energy from killing Shiites.

The only way to really dry up their support, though, is for the Arab and Muslim modernists to actually implement better ideas by producing less corrupt and more consensual governance, with better schools, more economic opportunities and a vision of Islam that is perceived as authentic yet embracing of modernity. That is where “our” allies in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have so consistently failed. Until that happens, the Islamist radicals will be bankrupt, but not out of business.

Taliban Tough Fighters, Marines Say

Iraq Veterans Find Afghan Enemy Even Bolder
New York Times
July 26, 2009

NAWA, Afghanistan — In three combat tours in Anbar Province, Marine Sgt. Jacob Tambunga fought the deadliest insurgents in Iraq.

But he says he never encountered an enemy as tenacious as what he saw immediately after arriving at this outpost in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. In his first days here in late June, he fought through three ambushes, each lasting as long as the most sustained fight he saw in Anbar.

Like other Anbar veterans here, Sergeant Tambunga was surprised to discover guerrillas who, if not as lethal, were bolder than those he fought in Iraq.

“They are two totally different worlds,” said Sergeant Tambunga, a squad leader in Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines.

“In Iraq, they’d hit you and run,” he said. “But these guys stick around and maneuver on you.”

They also have a keen sense of when to fight and when the odds against them are too great. Three weeks ago, the American military mounted a 4,000-man Marine offensive in Helmand — the largest since President Obama’s troop increase — and so far in many places, American commanders say, they have encountered less resistance than expected.

Yet it is also clear to many Marines and villagers here that Taliban fighters made a calculated decision: to retreat and regroup to fight where and when they choose. And in the view of troops here who fought intensely in the weeks before the offensive began, fierce battles probably lie ahead if they are to clear the Taliban from sanctuaries so far untouched.

“It was straight luck that we didn’t have a lot more guys hit,” said Sgt. Brandon Tritle, another squad leader in Company C, who cited the Taliban’s skill at laying down a base of fire to mount an attack.

“One force will put enough fire down so you have to keep your heads down, then another force will maneuver around to your side to try to kill you,” he said. “That’s the same thing we do.”

In other parts of Helmand the Taliban have been quick to mount counterattacks. Since the offensive began, 10 Marines have been killed, many of them south of Garmser in areas thick with roadside bombs. In addition, British forces in Helmand, who often travel in lightly armored vehicles, have lost 19 men, all but two from bombs.

All told, Western troops have died in greater numbers in Helmand this month than in any other province in Afghanistan over a similar period since the 2001 invasion.

It is unclear whether the level of casualties will remain this high. But the Taliban can ill afford to lose the Helmand River Valley, a strip of land made arable by a network of canals that nourish the nation’s center for poppy growing.

“This is what fuels the insurgency,” said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine brigade leading the offensive.

For now, the strategy of the Taliban who used to dominate this village, 15 miles south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, is to watch and wait just outside, villagers and Marines here say.

“They all escaped,” said Sardar Gul, a shopkeeper at the Nawa bazaar. Mr. Gul and others who reopened stores after the Marines arrived estimate that 300 to 600 Taliban fled to Marjah, 15 miles to the west and not under American control, joining perhaps more than 1,000 fighters.

Marine commanders acknowledge that they could have focused more on cutting off escape routes early in the operation, an issue that often dogged offensives against insurgents in Iraq.

“I wish we had trapped a few more folks,” the commander of First Battalion, Fifth Marines, Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, told the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who visited Nawa. “I expected there to be more fighting.”

When the full battalion arrived in Nawa in early July, the Taliban “knew we were too powerful for them” and left, said Staff Sgt. Michael Placencia, a platoon sergeant in Company C.

But he predicted the Taliban would stand and fight if Marines were to assault Marjah, describing them as a “more efficient” foe than the insurgents he saw as a squad leader in Anbar in 2005 and 2006.

“They will come back, and they will try to take this back and pin us down,” said Maj. Rob Gallimore, a British officer who trains Afghan soldiers here. He hopes that the Marines do not spread themselves too thin and that they focus instead on building a deep bond with locals in places they occupy, a classic counterinsurgency tactic.

So Marines are bracing for a fight against guerrillas who, they discovered in June, are surprisingly proficient at tactics the Marines themselves learned in infantry school.

“They’d flank us, and we’d flank them, just like a chess match,” said Sgt. Jason Lynd, another squad leader in Company C.

In June the Marines ended up in sustained firefights the first four times they left their outpost. The Taliban were always overmatched — attacking the Marines with only one-third the number of men — but they pressed the fight, laying complex ambushes and then cutting off Marines as they made their way back to base.

One fight began after Marines stopped three vans, which they let go. Fifteen minutes later they took fire from two homes near where they had been pursuing a suspicious man they wanted to question. They cleared both buildings, but were then attacked by gunmen behind the homes, some of whom, the Marines believe, had been in the three vans, a few disguised in burqas.

Somehow, none of the Marines were hit in the secondary ambush. “They tried to suck us in, and their plan worked,” Sergeant Tritle said. “They just missed.”

No Marines were killed in the two weeks they were here in June.

In contrast to Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban do not seem to have access to large artillery shells and other powerful military munitions that Anbar fighters used to kill hundreds of Marines and soldiers. The bombs found so far have been largely homemade with fertilizer, though they have still killed more than 20 British soldiers and United States Marines to the north and south of Nawa.

“If they had better weapons, we’d be in real trouble,” said Lance Cpl. Vazgen Matevosyan.

What the Taliban lack in munitions they make up for in tactics, even practicing “information operations” and disinformation, Marines say. Knowing the Marines listen to their two-way communications, they say, the Taliban describe phony locations of ambushes and bombs.

“They’re not stupid,” said Lance Cpl. Frank Hegel. “You can tell they catch on to things, and they don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Biden: More 'Sacrifice' In Afghanistan

Biden Warns Of More 'Sacrifice' In Afghanistan

New York Times
July 24, 2009
By Alan Cowell

LONDON — Entering a debate that has stirred political tumult in Britain, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in an interview broadcast Thursday that more coalition troops would die in Afghanistan but that the war was “worth the effort.”

Speaking during a tour of Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden told the BBC that the lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was “a place that, if it doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States.”

His remarks have a particular resonance in Britain at a time when the American-led coalition has recorded some of its worst casualties since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Britain has some 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan — the second biggest contingent after the United States — and so far this month alone has lost 19 soldiers. That brings Britain’s total since 2001 to 188, higher than its death toll in the Iraq war. The latest fatalities came Wednesday, when bombs killed two United States service members and one Briton in southern Afghanistan.

Before those deaths, July had already become the deadliest month for American service members in the country since the 2001 invasion.

With the newest fatalities, more than 30 Americans have died in the first three weeks of July, surpassing the highest previous monthly toll of 28, reached in June 2008.

The deaths coincide with a major American offensive, supported by British and other troops, in Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold, in advance of presidential elections next month.

While some British newspaper columnists have questioned the reasons for fighting the war, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is locked in a dispute with the main opposition leader, David Cameron, over the government’s record on providing the right equipment — particularly helicopters — to shield British soldiers from the increasingly deadly roadside bombs planted by the Taliban.

In the interview, Mr. Biden said that in terms of the national interests of the United States, Britain and other European countries, the war “is worth the effort we are making and the sacrifice that is being felt.”

“And more will come,” he said, referring to the current phase of hostilities as “the fighting season.” He did not comment specifically on the debate over British equipment.

He said the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region was “the place from which the attacks of 9/11 and all those attacks in Europe that came from Al Qaeda have flowed, from that place between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

He called British soldiers “among the best trained and bravest warriors in the world.”

The debate over British troops’ access to helicopters sharpened Wednesday when a Foreign Office minister, Lord Malloch Brown, told a newspaper interviewer that “we definitely don’t have enough helicopters.”

But he withdrew the comment, apparently under pressure from the prime minister, who has insisted that access to more helicopters would not have saved British lives in the latest wave of fatalities. Mr. Brown’s critics argue that lives would be saved if troops were transported by helicopter rather than by land vehicles, in which they are more vulnerable to attacks.

“In the operations we are doing at the moment, it is completely wrong to say that the loss of lives has been caused by the absence of helicopters,” Mr. Brown said Wednesday. “For the operations we are doing at the moment, we have the helicopters we need.”


**************

Marines Find And Destroy Chemical Cache In Afghanistan

Marines Find And Destroy Chemical Cache In Afghanistan
CNN Newsroom, 11:00 AM
July 20, 2009

TONY HARRIS: U.S. Marines in Afghanistan have found and destroyed a cache of chemicals used to make heroin and explosive devices.

Our Ivan Watson is embedded with the U.S. Marines in Helmand Province, and he has an exclusive look at what is going on.

Ivan, my under! standing is that you were on patrol with the Marines. Explain to us in greater detail what they found.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Tony, I'm with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, part of a force of some 4,000 Marines that earlier this month launched into Taliban-controlled parts of this turbulent Helmand Province, considered by some the opium capital of the world. This is one of the largest U.S. military operations since this war began nearly eight years ago.

And let's take a look at what we got during an operation last night into a bazaar very close to where I'm standing right now, Tony.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WATSON: Right now, the Marines back here are rigging these chemicals with explosives -- C-4 plastic explosives. You can see them getting ready for what will be a controlled explosion in a couple of hours.

Now the reason for this, the reason that these C-4 plastic explosives were being placed here, is because these chemicals ! are believed to be used to process heroin. More than 90 percent of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, and a bulk of that comes from this very province in southern Afghanistan which has not really been under the control of the Afghan central government in years.

Part of the reason why this operation over the course of this month is such a big deal is because the Marines have moved into areas where the Taliban have been able to operate freely, where drug cartels have been able to operate freely in the fields around this town where we're located right now. You can see miles of poppy fields growing there where the heroin is then later produced, using some of these chemicals. In addition to this, the Marines have found chemicals used for improvised explosive devices, these deadly weapons that have helped make this the bloodiest month yet for NATO forces in Afghanistan. (END VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: And Tony, sure enough, before dawn this morning, we did see that controlled explosion, a massive ball of flame, and a chemical fire that t! hen burned for the better part of an hour from this very simple mud brick marketplace not too far from the border with Pakistan -- Tony.

HARRIS: Boy, that's pretty dramatic video there.

Ivan, you were with the Marines in the same province last summer. Has anything changed since then?

WATSON: Well, it's interesting, Tony. I was with a smaller force of Marines probably 25 miles north of here. They had moved in last summer in similar conditions to try to cut off the flow of Taliban weapons and fighters from Pakistan north, and to try to do something to block the flow of narcotics south -- the export -- some of which we believe the money is used to help fund the insurgency.

And the Marines promised to rebuild here. They said that there were going to be efforts to bring the Afghan central government. But right now what we're seeing is that a year later, Marines are fighting battles in some of those same villages that I was in last year.

It shows how! deeply rooted and entrenched the insurgency is here. And it also show s that the promises to rebuild after military offensive are very difficult to fulfill.

We'll see what happens after this offensive, Tony. Definitely, there are far more American and British soldiers this time around -- Tony.

HARRIS: Well, clearing is one thing. Holding is a far different proposition. Ivan Watson for us in Helmand Province. Ivan, appreciate it. Thank you.

2/8 Marines Fighting South of Garmsir

Marines Face Stiff Taliban Resistance

Logistical Difficulties Inhibit Troops During Clashes in Southern Afghan Province

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post
July 20, 2009

GARMSIR, Afghanistan, July 19 -- Marines pushing deep into a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province battled insurgents in a day of firefi! ghts around a key bazaar Sunday, as an operation designed as a U.S. show of force confronted resistance from Taliban fighters as well as constraints on supplies and manpower.

Insurgents at times showed unexpected boldness as they used machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to fight the advancing Marine forces. Although the Marines overpowered the Taliban with more sophisticated weapons, including attack helicopters, the clashes also indicated that the drive by about 4,500 Marines to dislodge the Taliban from its heartland in Helmand is running up against logistical hurdles.

The firefights erupted a day after the Marines raided Lakari Bazaar in Garmsir district, a market that the Taliban has long used to store and make weapons and drugs, as well as to levy taxes on civilians. The Taliban until now had free rein in the area because there had been virtually no Western or Afghan government presence.

"This has been their turf for a long time, and n! ow we are in here, invading their space," said Capt. John Sun, Fox Com pany commander, at his makeshift headquarters in a fabric stall inside the bazaar. "The bazaar was a huge financial and logistics base for the Taliban, and they want to get that back."

The Marine advance began Friday when Fox Company, a unit of roughly 200 Marines, traveled in open-back trucks on a grueling, overnight journey east and south through the desert to avoid routes implanted with bombs. The Taliban has littered the main routes in Garmsir with roadside bombs, called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, forcing U.S. commanders to bar most travel by military vehicles on those roads. The number of IED attacks in southern Afghanistan has surged 78 percent over the past year, with much of the increase in Helmand.

Arriving at Lakari Bazaar at daybreak Saturday for the raid, the Marines went door to door, using explosives, rifles and axes to break into each store.

"Breaching!" yelled Lance Cpl. Travis Koehler, 21, of Fountain Valley, Calif., as he shot o! ff a lock with his MK-12 marksman's rifle and kicked open the door for a team of Marines to enter. "All clear!"

Afghan soldiers advised by British troops searched the market and together with the Marines uncovered mortars, grenades, ammunition, and thousands of 100-pound bags of opium poppy and bomb-making materials, as well as facilities where the bombs and drugs were produced. They found tax receipts and recruiting leaflets calling on young men to join the Taliban and kill British and U.S. troops.

"The bazaar has been used by the Taliban as a staging area, weapons cache and profit base," by taxing local vendors, Sun said.

The Taliban had left the market before the raid, however, and only a handful of shopkeepers were around, leaving it deserted but for a few cats and donkeys.

Late Saturday, Sun received word that the Taliban was regrouping in a nearby village across a canal to the west. At 3 a.m. Sunday, he launched 2nd Platoon, which includes doze! ns of Marines, on a foot patrol to investigate. At about 8, the patrol moved into an open field, where it was ambushed by Taliban fighters positioned in two tree lines to the south and east.

When Taliban fighters fired the first shot with an AK-47 assault rifle, Sgt. Benjamin Pratt thought one of his Marines had discharged a round accidentally, he recounted. "Hey, who shot?" he called back to his squad. But within seconds, the men realized they were under fire.

"Where is the . . . fire coming from?!" shouted Lance Cpl. James Faddis, 21, of Annapolis, Md. Faddis, in his first firefight, was the M-240 machine gunner for a weapons team that had advanced farther across the field than any other Marines and initially took the most direct fire from Taliban rifles and machine guns. Bullets were cracking around their heads and kicking up dust nearby.

"Get your gun up!" yelled Cpl. Jonathan Kowalski, 25, of Erie, Pa., ordering the Marines to fire toward the tree line to the south, where he saw muzzle flashes and Taliban fighters in dar! k dishdashas running between positions.

The insurgents began firing mortar rounds, honing their aim until one landed just 150 yards from the Marines. The Marines called in mortars of their own, which were fired from the bazaar onto the tree line, causing a few minutes' lull in the fighting.

Faddis and his team scrambled and crawled to a better position, but on the way Kowalski dropped his radio. So he and the other machine gunners had to shout to the infantrymen to indicate they could move forward.

Sgt. Deacon Holton bounded into the soggy field along with Cpl. Clayton Bowman and other Marines, running and slipping through knee-deep mud saturated from recent irrigation.

As the Marines maneuvered, a Huey and a Cobra attack helicopter flew in low overhead, circling above to spot the fighters. Capt. Brian Hill, the forward air controller, put on a bright orange panel and wore it like a cape to identify the Marine position.

Often Taliban fighters f! lee when helicopters arrive, Sun said, but this time they stayed, and attempted to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at one of the aircraft. The Huey made two strafing runs with its Gatling guns over the tree lines, while the Cobra fired missiles, finally ending the firefight. The helicopter crew spotted at least two dead Taliban fighters.

Although the Marines asked to pursue the Taliban fighters south, more senior commanders denied the request. Sun said he thinks the problem was a lack of helicopters to provide air power and to evacuate any possible casualties, as well as roads that had not been cleared of bombs.

"Due to the limited numbers of helicopters available, it would not have been in our best interest to get decisively engaged," Sun said. In addition, moving south would leave the bazaar open to attack, he said.

But some Marines voiced disappointment at not being able to track the Taliban, saying that decision may have allowed the insurgents to stage fresh attacks on the bazaar later in the afternoon. Faddis, Kowalski a! nd their machine-gunning team were on guard duty in a mud-brick structure in the market that had a window facing fields to the south when shots broke out from a nearby compound. Faddis spotted a target and fired back. "They're moving out of the compound!" one Marine yelled, unleashing another volley of machine-gun fire.

The gun battle was complicated by the presence of women, children and shepherds in adjacent fields. Having staked out a claim in Lakari Bazaar, Sun said, the question remains whether his company should continue to hold this relatively strung-out position or pull back, knowing such a move would allow the Taliban to return, at least temporarily. "That's a dilemma," Sun said.

Nation At War Loses Its Interest

Nation At War Loses Its Interest

By Frida Ghitis
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
July 17, 2009

As Americans followed the news about Michael Jackson's death with an interest bordering on obsession, the situation for American forces fighting in Afghanistan became deadlier than ever.

The day before Jackson's memorial service extravaganza -- watched by more than 30 million television v! iewers -- brought the worst one-day losses for the United States in almost a year. Seven soldiers died that day in Afghanistan, and the deaths have continued to mount for the U.S. and its allies.

Still, few people seem to have more than a passing interest in a war that seems so distant as to appear almost unreal.

The same people who planted "War is Not the Answer" signs in their yards to protest the Iraq conflict have little to say about this war. Afghanistan, after all, is more difficult to paint with broad strokes of black and white.

If you hated George W. Bush, you hated the Iraq war. Afghanistan, on the other hand, has become Barack Obama's war. And Obama, who opposed the war in Iraq, came to office as a hero of the anti-war movement, even if he always said he did not oppose all wars, "only dumb ones."

Perhaps the challenge of deciding if this is a "dumb war" has become a hurdle too high to jump. As a result, people have tuned out.

A look a! t the most popular story lists on news Web sites betrays a lack of con cern for what is happening in Afghanistan that can only bring more despair to the families receiving the throat-closing news that their loved ones' lives have ended.

By some counts, July is already the deadliest month in eight years of war. According to icasualties.org, a Web site keeping track of US and allied casualties, 737 Americans have died in Afghanistan since the war started a few weeks after Sept. 11. At this writing, 45 coalition soldiers had already died in July alone. By the time you read this, the numbers may have grown.

And yet, the New York Times lists of most searched, most e-mailed and most blogged stories in the last seven and 30 days does not even show Afghanistan in the rankings. As I write this, the list for the most popular searches of the past 24 hours, shows Afghanistan at No. 42, far behind queries such as, "Palin," "iPhone" or, of course, "sex."

The British, who lost 15 soldiers in the past 10 days, have engaged in a fierce debate ! over what their troops have faced on the Afghan battlefield. Both major parties agree on the worthiness of the mission, but the government faces angry complaints about inadequate equipment.

As the deadly summer continues to unfold, Americans will eventually, if reluctantly, begin to cast their attention to Afghanistan. Sooner or later we will ponder the key question: Is this war worth the cost?

Some possibly forgot why Americans even went there. In Afghanistan, the U.S. faces the Taliban, religious fanatics who all but imprisoned their women and oppressed the population with a brutally extreme interpretation of Islam.

More importantly for America, they gave Osama Bin Laden a place to train al-Qaida operatives and plan the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 Americans. The Taliban lost power after the U.S. retaliated. But while Washington focused on Iraq they regrouped and regained territory. The Taliban in Afghanistan are closely linked with their! brethren in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

If Obama faces difficult ch allenges today, what will happen if the current strategy to push back the Taliban fails. Then what? Obama already ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. By the time the country holds elections this fall, 68,000 Americans will stand on Afghan soil. If the country begins unraveling, Obama will have to decide whether to double down or accept defeat and withdraw. Withdrawal could hand the Taliban a base from which to attack the West and achieve their stated goal of seizing Pakistan's nuclear weapons. If Obama decides to pour more American forces into the war effort, he could risk the same fate as presidents before him, who have seen their presidencies consumed, almost destroyed, by increasingly unpopular wars.

Whether we like it or not, America remains at war. The stakes remain high, and we will eventually have to pay attention. Until now, most Americans have found it easy to look away, focus on celebrity news and other items that may tug at the heart strings ! but are less consequential to the future of the country. That must soon change.

Frida Ghitis, a world affairs columnist in Decatur, is the author of "The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

Marines at Risk Due to New McChrystal Policy ??

Marines Wrestle With Afghanistan's New Airstrike Rules

By David Axe
Danger Room (Wired.com)
July 9, 2009

Gen. Stanley McChrsytal, the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has issued new, more restrictive rules for when American troops can call in airstrikes, after a controversial incident in May killed dozens of civilians. From now on, U.S. forces must “work through” engagements where civilians might be at risk, rather than simply calling in a B-1 bomber, according to one officer with knowledge of McChrystal’s new rules.

On the surface, the rules — about “weighing the gain” of airstrikes against the cost of civilian casualties” — don’t sound that much difference from the old guidelines. They urged urged caution, too. But the Marines, who last week launched a major offensive meant to re-take a swath of southern Afghanistan from the Taliban, are already seeing a difference. For them, the new rules mean extra patience, and the possibility that the Taliban might sometimes slip through their grasp, if one incident in southern Afghanistan, on Monday, is any indication. The incident shows McChrystal’s tighter rules, in action — and reveals the delicate, dangerous situations that U.S. forces could face, as they try to balance the need to protect everyday Afghans, with the desire to kill the Taliban.

The Marines’ pursuit of a Taliban squad unfolded normally, until the Taliban took shelter in a building the Marines feared might contain civilians. Under the new rules, the Leathernecks couldn’t just call in an airstrike. Instead, they settled in to “wait out the insurgents,” CNN reported. “The Marines’ restrained approach differs from previous hits on compounds.”

But the new rules also require the Marines to “be sensitive to Afghan cultural norms regarding women.” So when a gaggle of civilians fled the compound, the Marines didn’t search the females. When the Americans finally stormed the compound, they found it empty — and realized the Taliban had sneaked out, dressed as women. “Apparently these were tall, rather broad-shouldered women with hairy feet,” a Marine spokesman mused.

This is McChrystal’s kinder, gentler Afghanistan war. In daily conferences, the top general is forcing his regional commanders to justify and take responsibility for every bomb dropped, and every life lost. “We are not saying that the enemy is going to get a free pass,” a spokesman said. “But in instances when our forces can make the decision to de-escalate, they have an opportunity to more deliberately work their way through the problem.” Problem is, de-escalation might sometimes give the Taliban an opportunity to work their way through, too — to safety.

Marines Push South In Operation Dagger

Long War Journal (longwarjournal.org)
July 7, 2009

Marines Push South In Operation Dagger
By Bill Roggio

The US Marine Corps has established a new combat outpost in southern Helmand province to block the Taliban's movement from the Pakistani border and deny the Taliban a safe haven.

Combat Outpost Payne is "the farthest south Marine Unit in Afghanistan," said Captain Chris Annunziata. "Everything that happens south of the river depends on us."

Payne "will serve as a logistical center for all operations that will eventually take place south of the river along the border with Pakistan," the US military reported. Another combat outpost is planned for the region. The Marines have yet to secure the district center of Dishu, southwest of Khanishin.

The establishment of Combat Outpost Payne, which overlooks the city of Khanishin on the Helmand River, is part Operation Dagger, a massive operation designed to secure the southern half of Helmand province. The Marines took control of Khanishin during the first day of Dagger.

Coalition and Afghan forces "are entering areas where few – if any – coalition forces have been in the past," the US military said in a press release during the opening days of the operation.

"Helmand province is a stronghold of the Taliban, and the coalition mission is to secure the area and make it safe for Afghans to live without the threats of militant groups," the US military continued.

Operation Dagger and its sister operation, Panther's Claw, went into full effect on July 2, when more than 4,000 US Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers were air assaulted into the districts of Nawa, Reg, and Garmsir.

Weeks before, more than 3,000 British, Dutch, Estonian, and US troops from Task Force Helmand had laid the groundwork for Dagger by seizing 15 river and canal crossings along the Helmand River between Gereshk in Nawa and the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. The move was designed to block Taliban forces from crossing the river as well as to secure the local population in the heavily populated Lashkar Gah - Gereshk region.

In a complementary move, the Pakistani Army arrayed forces along the border in the district of Chagai, according to Major Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman.

"We've mustered more troops from the other areas of the border" and put them along the border with Helmand province, Abbas said. "It is sort of a reorganization."

During the past six days of fighting, Coalition and Afghan forces have met relatively little resistance from the Taliban. Although US Marines killed an estimated 30 Taliban during a single engagement, the Taliban by and large have "gone to ground," said Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, the commander of the more than 10,000-strong Marine Expeditionary Brigade operating in Helmand. Only one Marine and three British soldiers, including a battalion commander, have been killed during fighting in the operation.

Coalition forces have been careful to avoid causing civilian casualties, following the directive of General Stanley McChrystal, the newly-minted commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. This approach has its complexities, however: In a recent engagement, a group of Taliban fighters escaped while wearing burkas after a compound was surrounded and an interpreter convinced the Taliban to free women and children.

Dagger is the opening phase of a larger operation to secure southern Afghanistan

While the operation has been hyped as being the largest in Afghanistan since the US invaded in late 2001, the reports are incorrect. The operation is the largest air assault by the Marine Corps since Vietnam. Operations Medusa and Mountain Thrust during the summer of 2006 involved tens of thousands of troops and spanned Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan provinces. The Taliban lost hundreds of fighters, but were able to regroup in neighboring provinces and sought safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas and in Baluchistan.

Operation Dagger has the somewhat limited objective of securing the southern half of Helmand province. The Taliban still maintain safe havens in the districts of Naw Zad, Nad Ali, Baghran, Sangin, and Washer; and numerous districts in Kandahar and Uruzgan are still under Taliban control.

Naw Zad, Nad Ali, and Baghran are known to host Taliban and al Qaeda training camps. While Dagger is designed to cut off the southern routes to these northern districts, the Taliban will still maintain supply lines from the east and the west until more forces are pushed into these regions.

Dagger and Panther's Claw are "foreign heavy and Afghan lite"

The composition of the forces for Operations Daggar and Panther's Claw highlight serious shortcomings in the growth of the Afghan security forces [for more information of the development of the Afghan security forces, see LWJ's Afghan Security Forces Order of Battle (OOB)].

The Afghan Army is thin in the south. Only 650 Afghan soldiers are accompanying the more than 7,000 Coalition forces in both operations.

"This operation is foreign heavy and Afghan lite," a US military officer involved in the planning of Dagger told The Long War Journal. "We must get more Afghan forces involved for this operation to be credible in the eyes of the Afghan people, and to sustain this over the long haul."

With the NATO command's change in the rules of engagement to further limit civilian casualties and respect cultural sensitivities, searches in compounds must be conducted by Afghan, not Coalition, troops. And there are too few Afghan troops available to conduct these searches. The Taliban fighters who escaped in burkas did so partly because Afghan troops were not available to conduct the required searches of those leaving the compound.

There are also too few members from the US State Department and USAID to follow up the military operation with development and governance programs. According to some reports, there are only two members of the State Department in Helmand. The US is planning to surge a dozen or so more members to augment the development.