COIN - How Not To vs. How To

The photo above shows why the war in Afghanistan is not going well for the United States.

It came from Laura King’s LATimes.com article of 17 Aug “'Three cups of tea' a byword for U.S. effort to win Afghan hearts and minds.” As Ms. King so aptly explains, the phrase “three cups of tea” has been adapted from the Greg Mortenson best-seller of the same name by the American military as the basis of how to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign.

The concept is a good one: win the trust of the people and they’ll tell you who are the bad guys, as well as what’s needed in their village to make it a semi-viable place to live – building local governments that can minister to its own people is incredibly important in a country whose central government is known worldwide for corruption and incompetence. “Counterinsurgency is easy,” Col Dale Alford (USMC) said at the National Press Club "COIN Symposium", “you want to make the locals choose us.” It worked with the Marines and Sunni’s in Ramadi and Anbar; it should work in Afghanistan where the choices are either us or the Taliban.

But any plan is only as good as it’s implementation…and that bring us back to the photograph : two soldiers sitting at their desk in an office looking down at Afghans who are sitting on the floor on the other side of the room. This is hardly how Gen James Mattis (USMC) and Gen David Petraeus (Army), co-authors of the 2006 Army-Marine Counterinsurgency Manual, envisioned building relations with the locals.

Mattis knew how to deal with a wary population. “Take off your sunglasses,” he ordered his Marines back in 2003 Iraq, “and let them get to know you. Play soccer with the kids, and don’t worry if you lose. Shake a lot of hands and chat them up.” Sound, effective advice until Paul Bremer’s ill-planned CPA took charge and Iraq exploded with I.E.D.’s.

What the Army fails to understand is that it’s not how many cups of tea one drinks that’s important, but that the act of drinking tea or sharing a melon is how strangers sit down peacefully and begin to know one another. Afghanistan is an incredibly poor country; perhaps the 5th poorest in the world, and sharing food is the ultimate in hospitality. It’s also worth noting that relationships are not built in a day, neither here, or in Afghanistan. Similar to most courting rituals worldwide, it takes more than one cup of tea and more than one meeting to build a relationship sufficiently deep to talk honestly about schooling, IED’s, and Taliban presence.

Bureaucracy and counterinsurgency are incompatible. Living on a FOB and patrolling by vehicle ensures you meet no locals. Eating at the DFAC means you’re not eating with the locals, and it’s worth noting that ten months after President Obama ordered more troops into Afghanistan, the Army has yet to deploy their final thousands of troops. Air conditioned bunks, Playstations and Wii, fast-food joints, an MWR shop…while such creature comforts are certainly attractive, they also keep the soldiers tied to their FOB’s.

In comparison, the Marine forces in Helmand and Nimroz Provinces live in, or in close proximity to the towns. They have limited internet access, very little a/c, and no Wii. In Musa Qual’ah, they live in the village center. In Marjah, they live on some ten different little patrol bases. In Nawa and Garmsir, considered the success stories of COIN in Afghanistan, they live in-and -around the towns. Relationships and trust are built by constant exposure to each other, and the Marines patrol 3x daily 7 days/ week. Yet Ms. King’s article quotes the ranking elder of a village as mentioning that American soldiers visited him ‘last month’, and how he doubted that “an occasional visit by the American forces could keep the insurgents at bay.”

It’s been written that the Marines out-patrol the Army by a factor of perhaps 20-1; hot, tiring work in a country jaded by nine years of broken Western promises. Yet done properly, as Mortenson’s book and Marine efforts in Helmand Province evidence, personal relationships can bring two disparate cultures together for mutual success. With American assistance, they’ll build enough functioning local governments that will enable our troops to come home.

But to “choose us” the locals need to get to know us, and to “know us” we need to get off the FOB’s and drink chai daily with that village elder.

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.

To finish strong in Afghanistan - where's NATO??

The Way Out
New York Times
May 4, 2010

President Obama made a convincing case last December for sending an additional 30,000American troops to Afghanistan. Most of those new forces, plus 58,000 already in country, would fight the Taliban. A smaller number would mold Afghan recruits into an indigenous Army and National Police force that could in time assume responsibility for protecting their country so the Americans and NATO allies could go home.

That handoff, so central to Mr. Obama’s strategy, has little chance of succeeding unless NATO gets more military trainers on the ground. Of the 5,200 trainers the United States and its NATO allies in January agreed were needed, about only 2,700 are there. All but 300 or so are Americans.

Illiteracy, corruption and other problems are not unexpected in a country as poor and undeveloped as Afghanistan. But a disturbing Pentagon report to Congress last week acknowledged that one of the “most significant challenges” to fielding qualified Afghan security forces is a shortage of “institutional trainers.”

The training effort — like everything else about Afghanistan — was shortchanged for years under President George W. Bush. It has received more attention and resources under President Obama. In November, the United States and NATO opened a new integrated training mission. Its leader, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, who previously led leadership schools and training programs at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., was a West Point classmate of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan.

General Caldwell has brought a new coherence and purpose to the mission by revamping the Afghan Army leadership program and standardizing police instruction, among other innovations. And he has managed to double his number of trainers from 1,300 when he started to roughly 2,700 today. But he — more to the point, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General McChrystal — is having a very hard time getting the rest of NATO to deliver on commitments.

NATO agreed that non-American members would provide half of the 5,200 trainers. Since December, those capitals have pledged to send only 1,000 trainers, and they have been very slow to deliver. Mr. Gates is now expected to send Americans to cover 600 of these slots for 90 days.
While the Americans are close to complement, General Caldwell also had to fight hard to secure enough troops to fill the American slots as well as management positions on his staff. For all of the talk about new missions and new thinking, there are still a lot of brass — and those who want to become brass — who don’t consider training a warrior’s job or a path to promotion. That culture needs to change.

American and NATO officials also need to look seriously at creating a standing corps of combat advisers who are trained and equipped to develop indigenous national security forces in overseas conflict zones.

The hurdles in training even a minimally effective Afghan force are daunting. There has been some progress. New initiatives like pay raises and mandatory literacy training should begin to improve professionalism and competency. None of these efforts have a chance if there are not enough NATO trainers to teach the Afghans how to defend their country.

Quantico Conference: Afghanistan-the Way Ahead

Building Up Afghan Capacity Seen as Key Challenge
By REUTERS
April 22, 2010

QUANTICO, Virginia (Reuters) - When U.S. forces went in to clear the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in February, the hope was that local Afghan government could step in fast, but that has proved tough and underscores a countrywide challenge.
At a conference at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia, U.S. and Afghan officials listed dozens of obstacles in building up "Afghan capacity" and boosting credibility of a government seen by many as inefficient and corrupt.
The Afghan government's past inability to deliver services and provide basic security in areas where the Taliban has been pushed out is seen as an important threat to the Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy. ''

In many districts, more than half of government jobs were still vacant as officials faced constant security threats and more educated candidates chose safer, more lucrative private sector work, said Jilani Popal, head of the Afghan agency seeking to boost government effectiveness.

"There is an urgent need for an improvement of the human resource situation in the provinces," Popal, director of the Independent Directorate of Local Government in Afghanistan, told Marines and officials at Wednesday's symposium.

In an extreme example, he said, only five out of 75 positions were filled in one district late last year, six provinces still did not have buildings for governors and others had no power.

In addition, Taliban have targeted local officials -- as they did on Tuesday when a deputy mayor in Kandahar was killed after gunmen burst into a mosque while he was praying.

"We have a lot of difficult days ahead of us, especially in terms of the issues of governance," said Brigadier General John Nicholson, head of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell at the Pentagon.

Another problem weighing on confidence in local government was the performance of the police force which U.S. and other allies are trying to boost in order to secure areas where the Taliban are being cleared out.
Nicholson said of an estimated 102,000 police in the country's force, only about 30 percent were trained.

"We have a fielded force out there carrying guns that are completely untrained -- the majority of them," he said. "We are just getting out of the starting gates. We are years behind."

AFGHAN ARMY

Retired Colonel Jeff Haynes, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 and is now doing research and analysis there, said the Afghan Army also needed to step up and be given a stronger leadership role.

He said there was often cronyism and it was hard to punish or reward people in that environment, adding that corrupt officers should be removed.

"These guys are smart, they are clever people, they can do more and they are playing us. We need to stand up to that," Haynes said.
The State Department's top civilian representative in southern Afghanistan, Frank Ruggiero, said the United States was working hard to create a "connection" between the people of Afghanistan and their government.

In the former Taliban stronghold of Marjah, the U.S. government prepared what it dubbed a "government in a box" to extend the reach of central government to the southern town.

However, that has been tough going, and Ruggiero said freedom of movement was difficult to establish in Marjah. The route into the area was still "relatively insecure" and government capacity was slowly being built up.

Asked what lessons had been learned from Marjah before an expected major push in neighbouring Kandahar province this summer, he said there was a need to better prioritize which officials were needed fast and to ensure they were trained in time.
"If you are going to clear the area, you need to work out what the services are you need to provide soon thereafter clearing, so that those people are trained, hired and ready to go," Ruggiero said.

The blame for poor governance could also be shared among allies and donors who had not focussed enough on this during the eight-year war, several speakers at the conference said.

Grant Kippen, who chaired the electoral complaints commission for the flawed election in Afghanistan last year, said there had been a giant lack of voter education from the officials taking part to those who voted.
"I think a huge effort needs to go into educating public servants at all levels," he said.

CIA & Taliban Both Illegal Combatants??

America's Unlawful Combatants
By Gary Solis
March 12, 2010

In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.

Before the 1863 Lieber Code condemned civilian participation in combat, it was contrary to customary law. Today, civilian participation in combat is still prohibited by two 1977 protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Although the United States has not ratified the protocols, we consider the prohibition to be customary law, binding on all nations. Whether in international or non-international armed conflict, we kill terrorists who take a direct part in hostilities because their doing so negates their protection as civilians and renders them lawful targets. If captured, the unlawful acts committed during their direct participation makes them subject to prosecution in civilian courts or military tribunals. They are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status.

If the CIA civilian personnel recently killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan, were directly involved in supplying targeting data, arming or flying drones in the combat zone, they were lawful targets of the enemy, although the enemy himself was not a lawful combatant. It makes no difference that CIA civilians are employed by, or in the service of, the U.S. government or its armed forces. They are civilians; they wear no distinguishing uniform or sign, and if they input target data or pilot armed drones in the combat zone, they directly participate in hostilities -- which means they may be lawfully targeted.

Moreover, CIA civilian personnel who repeatedly and directly participate in hostilities may have what recent guidance from the International Committee of the Red Cross terms "a continuous combat function." That status, the ICRC guidance says, makes them legitimate targets whenever and wherever they may be found, including Langley. While the guidance speaks in terms of non-state actors, there is no reason why the same is not true of civilian agents of state actors such as the United States.

It is, of course, hardly likely that a Taliban or al-Qaeda bomber or sniper could operate in Northern Virginia. (In 1993, a Pakistani citizen illegally in the United States shot and killed two CIA employees en route to the agency's headquarters. He was not, however, affiliated with any political or religious group.)

And while the prosecution of CIA personnel is certainly not suggested, one wonders whether CIA civilians who are associated with armed drones appreciate their position in the law of armed conflict. Their superiors surely do.

====
Gary Solis, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is the author of "The Law of Armed Conflict."

Marine Success in A'stan...leads to Army jealousy

At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 14, 2010; A01

DELARAM, AFGHANISTAN -- Home to a dozen truck stops and a few hundred family farms bounded by miles of foreboding desert, this hamlet in southwestern Afghanistan is far from a strategic priority for senior officers at the international military headquarters in Kabul. One calls Delaram, a day's drive from the nearest city, "the end of the Earth." Another deems the area "unrelated to our core mission" of defeating the Taliban by protecting Afghans in their cities and towns.

U.S. Marine commanders have a different view of the dusty, desolate landscape that surrounds Delaram. They see controlling this corner of remote Nimruz province as essential to promoting economic development and defending the more populated parts of southern Afghanistan.

The Marines are constructing a vast base on the outskirts of town that will have two airstrips, an advanced combat hospital, a post office, a large convenience store and rows of housing trailers stretching as far as the eye can see. By this summer, more than 3,000 Marines -- one-tenth of the additional troops authorized by President Obama in December -- will be based here.

With Obama's July 2011 deadline to begin reducing U.S. forces looming over the horizon, the Marines have opted to wage the war in their own way.

"If we're going to succeed here, we have to experiment and take risks," said Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Afghanistan. "Just doing what everyone else is doing isn't going to cut it."

The Marines are pushing into previously ignored Taliban enclaves. They have set up a first-of-its-kind school to train police officers. They have brought in a Muslim chaplain to pray with local mullahs and deployed teams of female Marines to reach out to Afghan women.

The Marine approach -- creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox -- has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

But the Marines' methods, and their insistence that they be given a degree of autonomy not afforded to U.S. Army units, also have riled many up the chain of command in Kabul and Washington, prompting some to refer to their area of operations in the south as "Marineistan." They regard the expansion in Delaram and beyond as contrary to the population-centric approach embraced by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and they are seeking to impose more control over the Marines.

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, recently noted that the international security force in Afghanistan feels as if it comprises 42 nations instead of 41 because the Marines act so independently from other U.S. forces.

"We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps," said a senior Obama administration official involved in Afghanistan policy.

(((SO WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM? WHAT THEY'RE DOING IS WORKING!))

Some senior officials at the White House, at the Pentagon and in McChrystal's headquarters would rather have many of the 20,000 Marines who will be in Afghanistan by summer deploy around Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, to assist in a U.S. campaign to wrest the area from Taliban control instead of concentrating in neighboring Helmand province and points west. According to an analysis conducted by the National Security Council, fewer than 1 percent of the country's population lives in the Marine area of operations.

They question whether a large operation that began last month to flush the Taliban out of Marja, a poor farming community in central Helmand, is the best use of Marine resources. Although it has unfolded with fewer than expected casualties and helped to generate a perception of momentum in the U.S.-led military campaign, the mission probably will tie up two Marine battalions and hundreds of Afghan security forces until the summer.

"What the hell are we doing?" the senior official said. "Why aren't all 20,000 Marines in the population belts around Kandahar city right now? It's [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar's capital. If you want to stuff it to Mullah Omar, you make progress in Kandahar. If you want to communicate to the Taliban that there's no way they're returning, you show progress in Kandahar."

Marines support Marines

Until earlier this month, McChrystal lacked operational control over the Marines, which would have allowed him to move them to other parts of the country. That power rested with a three-star Marine general at the U.S. Central Command. He and other senior Marine commanders insisted that Marines in Afghanistan have a contiguous area of operations -- effectively precluding them from being split up and sent to Kandahar -- because they think it is essential the Marines are supported by Marine helicopters and logistics units, which are based in Helmand, instead of relying on the Army.

After concern about the arrangement reached the White House, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who heads the Central Command, issued an order in early March giving McChrystal operational control of Marine forces in Afghanistan, according to senior defense officials. But the new authority vested in McChrystal -- the product of extensive negotiations among military lawyers -- still requires Marine approval for any plan to disaggregate infantry units from air and logistics support, which will limit his ability to move them, the defense officials said.

"At the end of the day, not a lot has changed," said a Marine general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as did several other senior officers and officials, to address sensitive command issues. "There's still a caveat that prevents us from being cherry-picked."

The Marine demand to be supported by their own aviators and logisticians has roots in the World War II battles for Guadalcanal and Tarawa. Marines landing on the Pacific islands did not receive the support they had expected from Navy ships and aircraft. Since then, Marine commanders have insisted on deploying with their own aviation and supply units. They did so in Vietnam, and in Iraq.

Despite the need to travel with an entourage, the Marines are willing to move fast. The commandant of the Corps, Gen. James T. Conway, offered to provide one-third of the forces Obama authorized in December, and to get them there quickly. Some arrived within weeks. By contrast, many of the Army units that comprise the new troop surge have yet to leave the United States.

"The Marines are a double-edged sword for McChrystal," one senior defense official said. "He got them fast, but he only gets to use them in one place."

Marine commanders note that they did not choose to go to Helmand -- they were asked to go there by McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David D. McKiernan, because British forces in the area were unable to contain the intensifying insurgency. But once they arrived, they became determined to show they could rescue the place, in much the same way they helped to turn around Anbar province in Iraq.
They also became believers in Helmand's strategic importance. "You cannot fix Kandahar without fixing Helmand," Nicholson said. "The insurgency there draws support from the insurgency here."

'Mullahpalooza tour'
The Marine concentration in one part of the country -- as opposed to Army units, which are spread across Afghanistan -- has yielded a pride of place. As it did in Anbar, the Corps is sending some of its most talented young officers to Helmand.

The result has been a degree of experimentation and innovation unseen in most other parts of the country. Although they account for half of the Afghan population, women had been avoided by military forces, particularly in the conservative south, because it is regarded as taboo for women to interact with males with whom they are not related. In an effort to reach out to them, the Marines have established "female engagement teams."

Made up principally of female Marines who came to Afghanistan to work in support jobs, the teams accompany combat patrols and seek to sit down with women in villages. Working with female translators, team members answer questions, dispense medical assistance and identify reconstruction needs.

Master Sgt. Julia Watson said the effort has had one major unexpected consequence. "Men have really opened up after they see us helping their wives and sisters," she said.

The Marines have sought to jump into another void by establishing their own police academy at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand instead of waiting for the U.S. military's national training program to provide recruits. The Marines also are seeking to do something that the military has not been able to do on a national scale: reduce police corruption by accepting only recruits vouched for by tribal elders.

"This is a shame culture," said Terry Walker, a retired Marine drill instructor who helps run the academy. "If they know they are accountable to their elders, they will be less likely to misbehave."

Then there's what Marines call the "mullahpalooza tour." Although most U.S. military units have avoided direct engagement with religious leaders in Afghanistan, Nicholson has brought over Lt. Cmdr. Abuhena Saifulislam, one of only two imams in the U.S. Navy, to spend a month meeting -- and praying with -- local mullahs, reasoning that the failure to interact with them made it easier for them to be swayed by the Taliban.

At his first session with religious leaders in Helmand, the participants initially thought the clean-shaven Saifulislam was an impostor. Then he led the group in noontime prayers. By the end, everyone wanted to take a picture with him.

"The mullahs of Afghanistan are the core of society," he said. "Bypassing them is counterproductive."

Reviving a ghost townIn December, columns of Marine armored vehicles punched into the city of Now Zad in northern Helmand. Once the second-largest town in the province, it had been almost completely emptied of its residents over the past four years as insurgents mined the roads and buildings with hundreds of homemade bombs. Successive units of British and U.S. troops had been largely confined to a Fort Apache-like base in the town. Every time they ventured out, they'd be shot at or bombed.

To Nicholson and his commanders, reclaiming the town, which the Marines accomplished within a few weeks, has been a crucial step in demonstrating to Helmand residents that U.S. forces are committed to getting rid of the Taliban. To other military officials in Afghanistan, however, the mission seemed contrary to McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy.

"If our focus is supposed to be protecting the population, why are we focusing on a ghost town?" said a senior officer at the NATO regional headquarters in Kandahar.

Nicholson notes that Helmand's governor supported the operation, as did many local tribal leaders. Hundreds of residents have returned in recent weeks, and at least 65 shops have reopened, according to Marine officers stationed in Now Zad.

"Protecting the population means allowing people to return to their homes," he said. "We've taken a grim, tough place, a place where there was no hope, and we've given it a future."

Nicholson now wants Marine units to push through miles of uninhabited desert to establish control of a crossing point for insurgents, drugs and weapons on the border withPakistan. And he wants to use the new base in Delaram to mount more operations in Nimruz, a part of far southwestern Afghanistan deemed so unimportant that it is one of the only provinces where there is no U.S. or NATO reconstruction team.

"This is a place where the enemy are moving in numbers," he said, referring to increased Taliban activity along a newly built highway that bisects the province. "We need to clean it up."

Nicholson contends that if his forces were kept only in key population centers in Helmand, insurgents would come right up to the gates of towns.

Other U.S. and NATO military officials say that what the Marines want to do makes sense only if there were not a greater demand for troops elsewhere. Because the Marines cannot easily be moved to Kandahar, U.S. and British military and diplomatic officials have begun discussions to expand the Marine footprint into more populous parts of Helmand with greater insurgent activity where British forces have been outmatched. That shift could occur as soon as this summer, when a Marine-run NATO regional headquarters is established in Helmand.

Until then, however, Marine commanders want to keep moving.

"The clock is ticking," Nicholson told members of an intelligence battalion that recently arrived in Afghanistan. "The drawdown will begin next year. We still have a lot to do -- and we don't have a lot of time to do it."

War- The Old-fashioned Way

Marines in Marja offensive find that the basics of battle haven't changed
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post
February 20, 2010

MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- They had slogged through knee-deep mud carrying 100 pounds of gear, fingers glued to the triggers of their M-4 carbines, all the while on the lookout for insurgents. Now, after five near-sleepless nights, trying to avoid hypothermia in freezing temperatures, the grunts of the 1st Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment finally had a moment to relax.

As the sun set Thursday evening over the rubbled market where they set up camp, four of them sat around an overturned blue bucket and began playing cards. A few cracked open dog-eared paperbacks. Some heated their rations-in-a-bag, savoring their first warm dinner in days. Many doffed their helmets and armored vests.

Then -- before the game was over, the chapters finished, the meals cooked -- the war roared back at them.

The staccato crack of incoming rounds echoed across the market. In an instant, the Marines grabbed their vests and guns. The 50-caliber gunner on the roof thumped back return fire, as did several Marines with clattering, belt-fed machine guns. High-explosive mortar rounds, intended to suppress the insurgent fire, whooshed overhead.

And so went another night in the battle of Marja.

The fight to pacify this Taliban stronghold in Helmand province is grim and grueling. For all the talk of a modern war - of Predator drones and satellite-guided bombs and mine-resistant vehicles - most Marines in this operation have been fighting the old-fashioned way: on foot, with rifle.

They hump their kit on their backs, bed down under the stars in abandoned compounds and defecate in plastic bags.

"This isn't all that different from the way our fathers and grandfathers fought," said Cpl. Blake Burkhart, 22, of Oviedo, Fla.

The battlefield privation here is unlike much of the combat in Iraq, which often involved day trips from large, well-appointed forward operating bases. Even when Marines there had to rough it, during the first and second campaigns for Fallujah, they didn't have to walk as far and they remained closer to logistics vehicles.

In Marja, U.S. military commanders figured, the best way to throw the insurgents off-balance and avoid the hundreds of homemade bombs buried in the roads was to airdrop almost 1,000 Marines and Afghan soldiers. That provided an element of surprise when the operation commenced, and it allowed the forces to punch into the heart of Marja. But it also meant they would have to tough it out.

Because they had to stuff their packs with food, water and ammunition, sleeping bags and tents were left behind. That seemed fine, because summer temperatures in southern Afghanistan often reach 140 degrees. But at this time of year, the mercury can dip -- and it did during the first days of the mission, to freezing temperatures at night.

Huddled under thin plastic camouflage poncho liners, the Marines lucky enough to get a few hours of sleep in between shifts of guard duty huddled close together, sometimes spooning one another, to keep warm.

It didn't always work. In those first days, more Marines were evacuated for hypothermia than for gunshot wounds. One grunt in the battalion's Alpha Company proudly displays the frostbitten tip of his middle finger as his battlefield injury.

In the mornings and evenings, the Marines huddle around small fires they build, fueled by stalks of dried poppy, the principal cash crop in Marja.
But in some platoon bases, nighttime fires have been banned because they make it too easy for Taliban snipers to aim.

The snipers have become the principal concern for the troops here, not the seemingly pervasive roadside bombs, in part because there is less driving than in other missions. More Marines have died from gunshot wounds than blasts in the first days of the operation.

As a consequence, body armor and helmets are a must-wear, except when in a patrol base with thick brick walls. Even then, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades are a constant threat.

Marines who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan call the Marja operation more intense than anything else they've encountered, save for the battles in Fallujah.
"This place is crazy," said one sergeant as he ran to respond to the attack on Thursday evening. "It's more intense than anything you could have imagined."

The intensity is sharpened by the lack of any relaxation. It's all combat, all the time.

The laptops and DVD players that some Marines brought are packed in duffel bags and footlockers, which will be delivered at some point. Could be days. Could be weeks.

There is technology out here, but it is all in the service of war. Each company has a few laptops connected to high-powered satellite antennas, which commanders use to view live, streaming footage from unmanned aircraft flying overhead. It allows a bird's-eye glimpse of the battlefield in a way their infantry units could only dream of a few years back.

But for the average grunts, all they have is what they could carry. And those who borrowed a book from the chapel library at the base before they were dropped into Marja -- well, nobody has really had time to read.

Same for showering. That is, if there were showers or places to bathe. "Hygiening" in the morning means a quick scrubbing with a baby wipe. Full ablutions are weeks away. In the meantime, everyone smells equally rank.

The lack of hot water hasn't kept the Marines from shaving. The Corps' style -- high-and-tight haircuts and cleanshaven faces -- is enforced out here, no matter how rough the conditions.

The one edict most openly flouted is with regards to the possession of pets. Every patrol base, no matter how small, seems to have attracted at least one stray dog in search of food, water or just companionship. The outpost that was attacked has a tiny puppy, dubbed Furball, who is fed a generous daily allotment of packaged tuna and chicken found in some ration bags.

The rations, which are called MREs -- for Meals Ready to Eat -- are pretty much all anyone has to eat, other than the last bits of Corn Nuts or beef jerky squirreled away in a rucksack. The choices range from a boneless pork rib to a beef enchilada to vegetable lasagna. Regular meals, which require a base with a kitchen, a dining hall and contract labor, may never come to Marja. The Marines here have been told to get used to meals in a bag for months.

None of this seems to bother anyone out here. There's a bit of harrumphing here and there -- the lack of hot coffee and the shortage of cigarettes prompt regular complaints -- but all say this is why they got into the Corps.

After Thursday's attack, which lasted 90 minutes before a volley of mortar shells and rockets presumably wiped out the insurgents who had been shooting, the Marines returned to their designated corners of the base in the darkness. Dinner was cold, and the cards were scattered. But nobody cared. All they wanted to do was talk about the fighting, and the one Marine who had been wounded by a Taliban sniper.

"This is better than 'Call of Duty,' " said Lance Cpl. Paul Stephens, 20, of Corona, Calif., referring to a series of shoot-'em-up video games.

"This is what it's all about," Cpl. Mina Mechreki added. "We didn't join the Corps to sit around. This is what we came out here to do."

Marines Hold the Roads

NATO Holds Marjah Roads; Troops Dropped Into Key Area

By Alfred de Montesquiou, AP
Feb 19


MARJAH, Afghanistan -- Two U.S. helicopters dropped elite Marine recon teams behind Taliban lines before dawn today as the U.S.-led force stepped up operations to break resistance on the seventh day of fighting in the extremist stronghold of Marjah.

About two dozen Marines were inserted into an area where skilled Taliban marksmen are known to operate, an officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

U.S. and Afghan troops encountered the sharpshooters and better-fortified Taliban positions yesterday, indicating that insurgent resistance in their logistics and opium-smuggling center was far from crushed.

NATO said six international service members died yesterday, bringing the number of allied troops killed in the offensive to 11 NATO troops and one Afghan soldier. The international coalition did not disclose their nationalities, but Britain's Defense Ministry said two British soldiers were among the dead.

No precise figures on Taliban deaths have been released, but senior Marine officers say intelligence reports suggest more than 120 have died. The officers spoke on condition of anonymity.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of U.S. Marines in Marjah, said that allied forces had taken control of the main roads, bridges, and government centers in the town of 80,000 people 360 miles southwest of Kabul. "I'd say we control the spine" of Marjah, he said as he inspected the Marines' front line in the north of the dusty, mud-brick town. "We're where we want to be."

As Nicholson spoke, bursts of heavy machine-gun fire showed that insurgents still held terrain about a half-mile away. "Every day, there's not a dramatic change; it's steady," he said, noting that fighting continued to erupt.

The offensive in Marjah is the largest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, and a test of President Obama's strategy for reversing the rise of the Taliban while protecting civilians.

Plans call for NATO to rush in a civilian administration, restore public services, and pour in aid to try to win the loyalty of the population in preventing the Taliban from returning.

But stubborn Taliban resistance, coupled with restrictive rules on allies' use of heavy weaponry when civilians may be at risk, have slowed the advance. The NATO commander of troops in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, told reporters in Washington via video hookup that he expected it could take 30 more days to secure Marjah.

NATO has given no figures on civilian deaths since a count of 15 earlier in the offensive. Afghan rights groups have reported 19 dead. Since those figures were given, much of the fighting has shifted away from the area where most civilians live.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly criticized the use of air strikes because of the risk to civilians. Twelve of the 15 deaths reported by NATO happened when two rockets hit a home Sunday.

Throughout yesterday, U.S. Marines pummeled insurgents with mortars, sniper fire, and missiles as gun battles intensified. Taliban fighters fired back with rocket-propelled grenades and rifles, some of the fire far more accurate than Marines have faced in other Afghan battles.

The increasingly accurate sniper fire - and strong intelligence on possible suicide bomb threats - indicates that insurgents from outside Marjah are still operating within the town, Nicholson said.

There were also pockets of calm yesterday. Several stores reopened in the bullet-riddled bazaar, and customers lined up to buy goods for the first time in nearly a week.

Taliban trying to woo, not kill, the locals

Taliban Overhaul Their Image In Bid To Win Allies
By Alissa J. Rubin
New York Times
January 21, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have embarked on a sophisticated information war, using modern media tools as well as some old-fashioned ones, to soften their image and win favor with local Afghans as they try to counter the Americans’ new campaign to win Afghan hearts and minds.

The Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, issued a lengthy directive late last spring outlining a new code of conduct for the Taliban. The dictates include bans on suicide bombings against civilians, burning down schools, or cutting off ears, lips and tongues.

The code, which has been spottily enforced, does not necessarily mean a gentler insurgency. Although the Taliban warned some civilians away before the assault on the heart of Kabul on Monday, they were still responsible for three-quarters of civilian casualties last year, according to the United Nations.

Now, as the Taliban deepen their presence in more of Afghanistan, they are in greater need of popular support and are recasting themselves increasingly as a local liberation movement, independent of Al Qaeda, capitalizing on the mounting frustration of Afghans with their own government and the presence of foreign troops. The effect has been to make them a more potent insurgency, some NATO officials said.
Afghan villagers and some NATO officials added that the code had begun to change the way some midlevel Taliban commanders and their followers behaved on the ground. A couple of the most brutal commanders have even been removed by Mullah Omar.

The Taliban’s public relations operation is also increasingly efficient at putting out its message and often works faster than NATO’s. “The Afghan adaptation to counterinsurgency makes them much more dangerous,” said a senior NATO intelligence official here. “Their overarching goals probably haven’t changed much since 2001, but when we arrived with a new counterinsurgency strategy, they responded with one of their own.”

The American strategy includes limiting airstrikes that killed Afghan civilians and concentrating troops closer to population centers so that Afghans will feel protected from the Taliban.

American and Afghan analysts see the Taliban’s effort as part of a broad initiative that employs every tool they can muster, including the Internet technology they once denounced as un-Islamic. Now they use word of mouth, messages to cellphones and Internet videos to get their message out.

The Taliban can shape the narrative about attacks sometimes before NATO public affairs even puts out a statement. Unlike the NATO press machine, the Taliban are willing to give details, and while some are patently exaggerated or wrong, others have just enough elements of truth that they cannot be entirely ignored.

The new public relations campaign combined with relatively less cruel behavior may have stemmed some of the anger at the insurgency, which tribal leaders in the south said had begun to rally people against the Taliban.

But the most important factor in their growing reach is the ineffectiveness of the central government and Afghans’ resentment of foreign troops. Military intelligence analysts now estimate that there are 25,000 to 30,000 committed Taliban fighters and perhaps as many as 500,000 others who would fight either for pay or if they felt attacked by the Western coalition.


Admiral Smith and others say that according to a recent Defense Intelligence Agency survey, the Taliban’s new strategy has failed to win over Afghans and that even though the insurgency may be carrying out fewer mutilations and beheadings, it still relies on intimidation through night letters, threatening conversations and even assassinations.

Interviews with tribal elders in areas where the Taliban are active suggest a complex picture. Several interviewed in rural Kandahar Province praised the Taliban’s new, less threatening approach, but said that did not translate into enthusiasm for the Taliban movement. At the same time, there is not much liking for either the Afghan government or NATO troops.

“There is a tremendous change in the Taliban’s behavior,” said Haji-Khan Muhammad Khan, a tribal elder from Shawalikot, a rural district of Kandahar Province. “They don’t behead people or detain those they suspect of spying without an investigation. But sometimes they still make mistakes, people still fear them, but now generally they behave well with people. They had to change because the leadership of the Taliban did not want to lose the support of the grass roots.”

The latest refrain of Taliban commanders, their Internet magazine and from surrogates is that the insurgency represents Afghanistan’s Pashtuns, who are portrayed as persecuted by the Afghan government. “Pashtuns are suffering everywhere; if you go and check the prisons, you won’t find any prisoners except Pashtuns; when you hear about bombings, it is Pashtuns’ homes that have been bombed,” said a Taliban commander from Kandahar Province who goes by the name Sangar Yar.

At the moment, the dueling propaganda wars seem to have reached a stalemate.

“People have no choices; they are in a dilemma,” said Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder and businessman in Kandahar. “In places where the Taliban are active, the people are compelled to support them, they are afraid of the Taliban. And, in those places where government has a presence, the people are supporting the government,” he said.

Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar.

New Marine Offensive !!

Dec. 4, 2009

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Helmand Province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan –

More than 1,000 International Security Assistance Force personnel partnered with Afghan National Security Forces personnel have begun operations in northern Helmand province to clear insurgent forces from a key area.

More than 150 Afghan soldiers and police and approximately 900 U.S. Marines and sailors from Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan and British forces from Task Force Helmand are participating in Operation Khareh Cobra (Cobra’s Anger) to clear insurgent forces in the Now Zad valley.

Marines from 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 7 and 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion are partnered with Afghan Army and police and with Task Force Helmand’s Battle Group (North West) and Brigade Reconnaissance Force. The forces began heliborne and ground insertions into the Now Zad valley early Friday morning to secure key terrain and allow the introduction of follow-on forces.

Now Zad was once Helmand’s second-largest city, but is now empty due to years of fighting. Insurgents have heavily mined the area, and a key purpose of the operation is to provide enough security for the Afghan government and non-governmental organizations to begin clearing the mines and improvised explosive devices in order to enable eventual repopulation of the city.

A company of Marines from 3/4 is stationed in Now Zad, along with 150 Afghan soldiers and police.

MEB-Afghanistan is a subordinate unit of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. The combined U.S. and Afghan mission is to provide security for population centers and connect local citizens with their legitimate government while establishing stable and secure conditions.

McChrystal Says He Has What He Needs

Obama's Commander Says Now Has Tools For Afghan War
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:31 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. battlefield commander said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama's 30,000-strong troop increase for the Afghan war would make a huge difference, as the White House prepared to sell the new strategy to Congress.

Rising combat deaths and military costs have sapped U.S. public support for the eight-year-old war and Obama's troop increase plan has prompted protests from left-leaning leaders of his Democratic Party ahead of congressional elections next year.

Within hours of Obama's speech announcing the extra troops -- delivered as Wednesday dawned in Afghanistan -- top U.S. and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal set off on a battlefield tour to rally his forces.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill in a rousing speech by videophone to his commanders, McChrystal called Obama's pledge of reinforcements "the end of the beginning" of the war.

But the Taliban, in a statement issued by email, said the increase would only increase their resolve.

"This strategy by the enemy will not benefit them," it said.

McChrystal told his commanders the additional forces would at last give them the troops they need to speed up the training of Afghan security forces and protect towns and villages.

Trainin g Afghan troops was now their "main effort," he said.

"At the end of the day, the success of this operation will be determined in the minds of the Afghan people," he said.

"It's not the number of people you kill; it's the number of people you convince. It's the number of people that don't get killed. It's the number of houses that are not destroyed. It's the number of children that do get to go to school."

Asked later if he was getting enough new troops, he told reporters: "I think it is going to make a huge difference. I think we'll be in great shape."

Top Obama administration officials were due in Congress later on Wednesday where they can expect a grilling from Democrats dubious of escalating the war, and Republicans suspicious of Obama's call for an 18-month timeline to begin withdrawing.

In his televised speech on Tuesday, Obama said the goal of raising U.S. troop levels to nearly 100,000 was to step up the battle against the Taliban, secure key centers and train Afghan forces so they can take over, allowing for a U.S. withdrawal.

"We always wanted to take over the responsibility for the destiny of our nation," Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters, adding that Obama's speech confirmed that the U.S. wants to help them do that.

"We just asked the international community to equip us quickly, to train us quickly, so that we can fulfill our historic responsibility."

Allies were also expected to send more soldiers, with Obama saying "the common security of the w orld" was at stake.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged coalition countries to back Obama's initiative. French President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed the plans, but did not commit France to following suit. Poland said it might send 600 troops to boost its contingent of 2,000.

SHORTER TIMELINE

There was no initial word from President Hamid Karzai, whose relations with the Obama administration are strained amid a re-election which involved widespread voter fraud.

But after meeting Karzai, McChrystal said the Afghan president backed the plan. "It was really positive. The president was very upbeat, very resolute."

Karzai is due to announce the makeup of his new government in coming days, and Washington says it is watching closely for signs he will combat corruption and appoint competent ministers.

Obama's pledge to start bringing U.S. troops home in 2011, provided conditions on the ground allow it, may help him contain rebellion among Democrats but drew swift condemnation from Republicans, who argue that setting withdrawal timelines emboldens the Taliban and undermines support for U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Congressional committees scheduled hearings on Wednesday and Thursday to review the revised strategy, estimated to cost $30 billion this fiscal year. Obama has the authority to send the soldiers, but Congress must approve the cost.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, are scheduled to appear before Congress.

McChrystal, who had recommended sending 40,000 troops, will testify next week.

TROOP MOVES FROM JANUARY

Major U.S. troop movements are likely to begin in January and all 30,000 should be in place by the end of August, far faster than planners had earlier suggested but in line with McChrystal's request for reinforcements before the summer fighting season.

Other NATO members are expected to commit between 5,000 and 7,000 additional troops, although some of them are already deployed as part of the alliance's 42,000-strong contingent.

Marking a major shift in U.S. strategy, McChrystal said the "vast majority" of the new combat troops would be fielded in partnership with Afghan units, a counter-insurgency mentoring tactic he said had not been fully possible in the past because the Afghan army and police were too small.

In his speech, Obama also focused on Pakistan, saying a cancer had taken root in its border region with Afghanistan and promised U.S. help to end it. Some officials in Islamabad fear the U.S. surge in Afghanistan will further destabilize their country.

Corruption: Afghan Style

Afghan minister accused of receiving huge bribe
‘Only God can stop this corruption’ competitor says of government practices
The Washington Post
Nov . 18, 2009

KABUL - The Afghan minister of mines accepted a roughly $30 million bribe to award the country's largest development project to a Chinese mining firm, according to a U.S. official who is familiar with military intelligence reports.

The allegation, if proved true, would mark one of the most brazen examples of corruption yet disclosed in a country where the problem has become so pervasive that it is now at the heart of Obama administration doubts over Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reliability as a partner. The question of whether Karzai can address his government's graft and cronyism looms large as he prepares for his inauguration Thursday for a new term, and as President Obama completes a months-long strategy review that will define the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan after eight years of war.

Karzai is coming under intense international pressure to clear his cabinet of ministers who have reaped huge profits through bribery and kickback schemes. Although he announced a new anti-corruption unit this week, the president has been reluctant to fire scandal-tainted ministers in the past, and it is unclear whether he is ready to do so now. Meanwhile, Afghans' perceptions that they are ruled by a thieving class have weakened support for the government and bolstered sympathy for the Taliban insurgency.

In the case of the minister of mines, there is a "high degree of certainty," the U.S. official said, that the alleged payment to Mohammad Ibrahim Adel was made in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, within a month of December 2007, when the state-run China Metallurgical Group Corp. received the contract for a $2.9 billion project to extract copper from the Aynak deposit in Logar province. Aynak is considered one of the largest unexploited copper deposits in the world.

Issue gains urgency
The selection of the Chinese firm, known as MCC, has angered some Afghan and American officials who worked on the bidding process with Adel. They say he was biased toward the company and did not give a fair hearing to the proposals of Western firms. But the issue has also gained urgency because the ministry is reviewing offers for another massive mining deal -- this time for an iron ore deposit west of Kabul known as Haji Gak -- for which MCC is the front-runner.

"This guy has done this already; we're in the same situation again," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In an interview, Adel denied repeatedly that he has received any bribes or illicit payments during his three-year-old tenure as minister and said that MCC won the contract after a fair review process. The Chinese company's investment -- including plans to build a railroad and a 400-megawatt power plant, and to make an $808 million bonus payment to the Afghan government -- far exceeded that of other firms, Adel said.

"I am responsible for the revenue and benefit of our people," Adel said. "All the time I'm following the law and the legislation for the benefit of the people."

The performance of the Mines Ministry under Adel typifies the weakness of Karzai's government. Afghanistan's wealth of mineral resources represents a potential bright spot in an otherwise feeble economy. Flush with copper, iron, marble, gold and gemstones, the mining sector could become a major source of revenue for the country.


But today, no major mines are functioning, and current and former U.S. and Afghan officials said incompetence and corruption have hindered the industry's development and frightened away potential investors.

"There is a pattern of improprieties that have gone on. We do know that the World Bank procedures, and the government of Afghanistan procedures, were badly breached repeatedly," said one former American adviser to the ministry. "There is every reason to believe there were probably gratuities exchanged."

Adel trained as a mining engineer in what was then the Soviet city of Leningrad, and his autocratic style has alienated current and former Afghan and American officials who have worked with him. It also has prompted widespread allegations that he or his deputies have received payments to award lucrative contracts to allies.


$25 million in a cardboard box
The first major contract of Adel's tenure was to privatize the Ghori cement factory, the country's only functioning cement plant, set in the limestone hills of Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan. The former mines minister, Mir Mohammad Sediq, said that Mahmoud Karzai, the head of the Afghan Investment Co. and the brother of the Afghan president, approached him, asking to take over the factory.

President Karzai replaced Sediq and installed Adel as minister in March 2006. Adel moved quickly on the cement proposal. A competitor for the project, the Aria Zamin company, said Adel used his influence to deny the firm a fair chance. The company's representative in the bidding, Nasir Khisrow Parsi, said that in the final days of the bidding process, Adel told him his company needed to present $25 million in cash to the ministry as a guaranty to show that the firm was serious.

"I told the minister, 'This violates the rules of the process. This is totally wrong,' " Parsi recalled. "In a country like Afghanistan, a person cannot carry even $100,000 from one place to another."

But Mahmoud Karzai's Afghan Investment Co. (AIC) came up with the money. The cash for the guaranty was carried in a cardboard box, flanked by gunmen, and placed on a desk in the ministry's headquarters in Kabul, officials said. One former deputy minister who witnessed the spectacle feared violence, but the deal went smoothly and AIC won the right to rehabilitate and expand the factory.

Adel defended the process but acknowledged that he has changed his procedures. "It was unusual. It was our first bidding," he said.

‘Only God can stop this corruption’
To Parsi, it was a blatant example of influence peddling in the ministry.

"They can do whatever they want," said Parsi, who now works in the geology department of the Mines Ministry. "The whole ministry is corrupt. No one is clean there. I don't see how this is going to end. Only God can stop this corruption."

Mahmoud Karzai could not be reached for comment. Adel said he exerted no influence over the ministry's decision. "If Mahmoud comes here, he has to sit there 30 minutes or one hour waiting for me," Adel said in his office.

The contract called for a massive increase in production -- from the 40,000 tons produced this year to 3 million tons -- by refurbishing the functioning plant, finishing construction on a second, adjacent factory, and building a third. But on a recent visit to the factory, the grounds were quiet and nearly abandoned. A manager blamed technical problems.

The work on the Aynak copper mine, in the high desert terrain of Logar province, has also gone slowly. The Chinese company has fallen about a year to 18 months behind schedule. The railroad project has not started. The company has complained about security threats from neighboring villages, despite an on-site force of more than 1,500 Afghan national policemen.


The deposit is estimated to hold enough copper to generate more than $200 million a year in government royalties, an amount equivalent to about a third of Afghanistan's budget last year, according to a report on the project by James R. Yeager, an American geologist who served as a ministry adviser.

Yeager's report criticized what he called a "murky and insufficient tender process" led by a "strong-willed minister unrelenting in his preference to see this award through with Asian partners." In ministry meetings to evaluate the bids, which included proposals from American and Canadian firms, Adel was a dominant force, several officials said.

"Anytime somebody brought up anything, he would squelch it," Yeager said in an interview. "We never really had any discussion."

Off To Afghanistan !

Sept 28, 2009, Dulles Airport.

It’s actually quite simple; if you want to write accurately about what’s happening in Afghanistan, you need to go there, spend some time, ask a lot of questions, and get out in the field with our Marines and soldiers as they’re working all three blocks of the 3-Block War. Will that make me an expert? No, but it’ll enable me to understand more of the shifting dynamics of a war where friends, enemies, and even our NATO have different perceptions and vastly different goals as to what “we” all want to accomplish.

And through the magic of the internet, I’ll be able to share it with you.

I’ll be spending the next five week in Afghanistan. I’ll be two week with the Army in the east, split between 10th MTN and the Nevada National Guard, and then I’ll roll south to Camp Leatherneck, and the Marines. It’s my forth trip, last summer I was in far-south Helmand Province with the Marines in Garmsir and I’ve spent four months in the east with various Marine Embedded Training Teams up-country. But it’s a far different war today from those under-resourced days of the last Administration; the Taliban has resurfaced this year with a vengeance, and only a few days ago General Stanley McChrystal said that without an additional 40,000 troops we were in danger of losing the war – and that he’d resign if he didn’t get them. If there is a ‘best’ time to embed in Afghanistan – this is surely it.

So as I sit here at Dulles with my Kevlar hanging off my shoulder bag, I’m getting some strange looks from those pompous lawyers and triple-chinned bureaucrats waddling past – Hey Fatso - Fuck You; I’m off to embed with our Marines and soldiers and you can kiss my ass; you have no clue as to what you’re missing in life, and you’re the lesser man for it.

Next Stop: Bagram AFB.

Afghans Also Divided on Western Troops

Afghans Divided Over Foreign Forces


By Matthew Green in Bamiyan and Fazel Reshad in Kabul
Financial Times
September 28, 2009

A bullet-shaped niche hewn from the mountainside is all that remains of the colossal stone Buddha that watched over the Bamiyan valley for 1,500 years before the Taliban demolished it with dynamite.

Fragments of the fallen giant and its smaller twin joined the debris left by armies past: from the carcasses of Soviet tanks to the hilltop ruins of the City of Screams, site of a 13th century massacre by Genghis Khan.

The Hazara community that lives along the valley has fared far better since US troops arrived in Afghanistan in 2001, seven months after the Taliban destroyed their statues, than they have under past invaders.

Even as the insurgency blazes in the south and smoulders in the north, their central Bamiyan province remains a rare Afghan haven, patrolled by New Zealanders who pride themselves on friendly relations with locals.

Traders in the bazaar in Bamiyan town, once a thriving stop on the Silk Route from Europe to Asia, have a simple solution to the dilemma faced by Barack Obama, the US president, over whether to deploy more troops.

“I would advise him to send more soldiers to kick out the Taliban,” said Azizullah, a shopkeeper who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. “We want freedom and we want progress.”

If such views represented a consensus, then it would be easier for Mr Obama to heed the recommendations of Stanley McChrystal, the top US general in Afghanistan, who says more troops and a new strategy are needed to stop the west losing the war.

But in the southern and eastern provinces, where the insurgency is fiercest, people are far more likely to see foreign soldiers as oppressors. “For 1,000 years we have never had such a Ramadan, where blood was flowing everywhere because of explosions,” said Haji Dawood Khan, a shopkeeper from Helmand province, referring to the Muslim holy month that ended earlier this month. “I don?t want any foreigners building roads or big buildings for me when I am cleaning blood from my home.”

Recognising the resentment that foreign forces have caused, Gen McChrystal argues that protecting civilians must be the focus for a new approach based on persuading Afghans to side with the western-backed government instead of the Taliban.

Evidence of systematic rigging in last month?s presidential elections has, however, deepened doubts over whether President Hamid Karzai is capable of transforming an administration often seen as absent, predatory or corrupt into an entity worthy of loyalty.

The bitter legacy left by NATO forces who have found themselves enmeshed in local feuds has widened mistrust. “The more foreign troops there are, the more people will hate them,” said Mohammad Karigar, a businessman from Kandahar province, another flashpoint of the insurgency.

Haji Kamrdin, a tribal leader from Khost province in the east, was equally dismissive of the big development programmes needed to underpin classic counterinsurgency doctrine. “It is impossible for Britain and its allies to build an Afghan state,” he said. “Such a thing can come only from an Afghan national movement, not as a gift from foreigners.”

There are dissenting voices, even in the south, who see sense in Gen McChrystal?s strategy. Haji Ghafoor, a tribal elder from Wardak province, said: “You need the flexibility that more troops give you to maintain momentum.”

However, the only unambiguous point of agreement between Afghans and the general is on the need to accelerate training of the army and police to allow foreign forces to leave. “They must take the money that they would spend on sending more troops and use the money for the Afghan police and army,” said Shah Mahmood, a clerk from Kandahar.

In a country that has experienced centuries of invasion, the narrative surrounding foreign forces tends to blur into a story of oppression, regardless of whether the outsiders are Russians, Pakistani intelligence agents supporting the Taliban in the 1990s, or Nato troops.

Of 17 Afghans interviewed in recent days, three said they believed Washington was bankrolling the insurgency to justify a long-term presence in Afghanistan. “If the US wants to remove the Taliban, they could do it easily,” said Mohammed Akram, an elder who lives at the foot of the mountains where the Buddhas once stood. “The US is supporting both sides.”

Additional reporting by Ahmad Wali Sarhadi.

Finally - Gates Supports More Troops

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Afghanistan conflict has proven more difficult than anticipated, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in echoing President Barack Obama’s deliberative approach on whether to send more troops.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Gates said the focus on Iraq by the previous administration of President George W. Bush meant the operation in Afghanistan has been limited.

“The reality is, we were fighting a holding action,” Gates said of situation under Bush, whom he also served as defense secretary.

“We were very deeply engaged in Iraq,” Gates said, later adding: “We were too stretched to do more. And I think we did not have the kind of comprehensive strategy that … we have now.”
Setting an exit strategy for Afghanistan would be a mistake, but the United States also will closely monitor developments to ensure its strategy is achieving desired results, Gates said.

Obama is under increasing pressure from congressional Republicans who favor sending more troops, as desired by commanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal, while many of the president’s fellow Democrats are expressing resistance.

Gates said McChrystal “found a situation in Afghanistan that is more serious than … we had thought and that he had thought before going out there.”

Asked why the Obama administration has yet to decide on McChrystal’s assessment that more troops will be necessary to defeat insurgents and protect the local population, Gates said it would take more time to properly analyze the situation.

"I think we are in the middle of a review," Gates told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, adding : “Once we're confident we have the strategy right, then — then we'll address the question of additional resources.”

Gates also noted that any additional combat troops for Afghanistan "really probably could not begin to flow" until January 2010.

He disagreed with setting a clear exit strategy for Afghanistan.

"The notion of timelines and exit strategies and so on, frankly, I think would all be a strategic mistake," Gates said. "The reality is — failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States.

“[The] Taliban and Al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, defeated one superpower, [the Soviet Union],” he continued. “For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think, would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, Al Qaeda recruitment, operations, fundraising, and so on. I think it would be a huge setback for the United States.”

Gates said the process should be defining a strategy “that we think can be successful, and then to pursue it and pursue it with confidence and resolution." At the same time, Gates suggested that the administration was not moving toward an open-ended, indefinite commitment to having a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

"I think that we are being very careful to look at this as we go along," Gates said. "We've put out metrics so that we can measure whether or not we're making progress. And if we're not making progress, then we're prepared to adjust our strategy, just as we're looking at whether adjustments are needed right now."

Pentagon Refuses to Forward McC's Urgent Troop Request

McChrystal Troops Request Shelved Pending Review

By REUTERS
Filed at 11:14 a.m. ET

KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has submitted a request for more troops, a spokesman said Saturday, but the Pentagon will hold it while President Barack Obama decides what strategy to pursue.

General Stanley McChrystal hand delivered his long-awaited request to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.

"At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," Sholtis said after McChrystal returned from the meeting at an air base in Germany.

In a bleak assessment prepared last month and leaked to the media in recent days, McChrystal wrote that his mission would likely fail if he is not given reinforcements for his force, now more than 100,000 strong, including about 63,000 Americans.

The additional troops would be needed as part of a complete overhaul of tactics, with new emphasis on securing civilians in population centers to loosen the grip of a strengthening Taliban-led insurgency.

The White House says it wants to review the entire strategy for the region before considering McChrystal's request.

"Right now the focus is on the strategic assessment itself. It (the troop request) will be shelved until such time that the White House is ready," a defense official said in Washington.

"It is not going to be addressed, or reviewed, or analyzed until the White House is ready to begin discussing! it."

The official, who asked not to be identified while discussing the confidential review, said several White House meetings on strategy were scheduled for next week.

Officials have not said exactly how many extra troops McChrystal believes he needs, although defense and congressional officials have suggested the request could be for about 30,000.

The war has intensified in recent months. A U.N. report released Saturday said 1,500 civilians had died so far this year, with August the deadliest month of the year and August 20 -- election day -- seeing the largest number of attacks since 2001.

August and July have also been the deadliest months of the war for Western troops, who launched major advances.

Obama, who has already ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, has described himself as a "skeptical audience" of the case for sending more, and says he wants to be sure the strategy is correct first. Republican critics have reacted sharply to the delay, accusing him of dithering.

POLL SHOWS OPPOSITION TO EXTRA TROOPS
A Gallup poll published Friday showed a fall in support for the war, with 50 percent of Americans opposed to sending more troops, while 41 percent supported it. Obama said he understood the public's concerns.

"This is not easy and I would expect that the public would ask some very tough questions," he told a news conference at a summit of world leaders in Pittsburgh Friday. "That's exactly what I'm doing, is asking some tough questions."

Increasing evidence of fraud in last month's Afghan presidential election has made the case for sending more troops to protect the Afghan government more difficult to defend.

"What's most important is that there is a sense of legitimacy in Afghanistan among the Afghan people for their government," Obama said of the disputed election. "If there is not, that makes our task much more difficult."

In a quarterly U.N. report released Saturday, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said: "Serious electoral fraud occurred, made possible primarily -- but not exclusively -- by the lack of access to parts of the country owing to the ongoing conflict."

"When the entire electoral process is completed, it will be of critical importance for the result to be accepted by all so that the election of Afghanistan's future preside nt can be certified and a new government can be formed," he added.

Preliminary results showed President Hamid Karzai winning in a single round with 54.6 percent of the vote, but if enough of his ballots are nullified because of fraud that he ends up with less than 50 percent, a second round must be held.

A U.N.-backed watchdog, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), has ordered a recount of some 3,000 polling stations, about 12 percent of the total, where it suspects fraud.

Afghanistan's election authorities and the ECC agreed this week to conduct the recount by studying ballots from a random sample of 10 percent of those suspicious polling stations, to speed up the process.

They hope to complete the recount and certify a result in the next two weeks so a second round, if needed, can be held before winter weather sets in.

Why is Gates Delaying Troop Request?

Afghan Troop Request Simmers

By Yochi J. Dreazen
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, is expected to formally ask the Pentagon for up to 40,000 additional U.S. troops this weekend, military officials said, despite a plan to delay the request.

Gen. McChrystal has held off on the request for several weeks at the! direction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon's civilian leadership, while the Obama administration conducts a broad reassessment of its strategy in Afghanistan.

Aides to Mr. Gates say the defense chief won't forward the request to the White House until that review has been completed -- and if its conclusion is to maintain the current war strategy.

On Friday, Gen. McChrystal flew to Germany to deliver a briefing on the request to Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other senior military commanders.

Adm. Mullen, the nation's top military officer, requested the half-day meeting at an American base at Ramstein, "to gain a better understanding of the pending resource requirements," according to a military official familiar with the meeting. "He wanted to talk about it face to face with Gen. McChrystal, to really hear him out."

Another military! official said Gen. McChrystal used the session to detail the numbers of additional troops he wants and his overall plans for using them to beat back the resurgent Taliban.

Military officials familiar with the matter say Gen. McChrystal's written report lays out several options for additional forces, including one that would ask for more than 40,000 reinforcements. About 65,000 American troops are now in Afghanistan, the most since the war began in 2001.

It is far from clear that Gen. McChrystal will get the additional troops, which the commander says are vital to turning around the flagging U.S.-led war.

The Obama administration announced a new Afghanistan strategy in March that focused on protecting Afghan civilians from Taliban attack rather than hunting individual militants. It is now weighing whether to modify or jettison that approach in the wake of a lingering controversy over the country's flawed presidential elections and a wave of Taliban violence.

Gen. McChrystal also faces hurdles in Congress, where many Dem! ocrats have expressed resistance to a troop increase and have been pressing for an exit strategy.

Five U.S. troops were killed in volatile southern Afghanistan Thursday, part of a surge of American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troop fatalities that is sapping public support for the war in the U.S. and Europe.

Thursday's casualties pushed the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan to 218 this year, including 36 this month, a sharp increase over last year's record toll of 155. Britain, which maintains the second-largest troop contingent, has lost 80 soldiers this year.

In a sign of the growing doubts about the war on both sides of the Atlantic, a British military commander who had led its forces in Afghanistan resigned suddenly after reportedly accusing the government of failing to provide its troops with the proper protective equipment and vehicles.

Maj. Gen. Andrew Mackay, who led the British forces in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province in 200! 7 and 2008, submitted his resignation Thursday. An American officer wh o served with him in Afghanistan said Gen. Mackay had come to believe British troops there were being exposed to unnecessary risk.

Osama bin Laden, the fugitive head of al Qaeda, apparently sought to seize on the war's unpopularity in Europe by releasing a recording Friday demanding that European nations withdraw troops and threatening attacks against European targets. U.S. officials said they believed the recording to be authentic.

The five-minute monologue by the terrorist mastermind made specific mention of a recent airstrike ordered by German forces and was part of a video that featured German subtitles, a still photo of Mr. bin Laden and a map of Europe.

Re-Supply Problems in Afghanistan

Military Supply Line Threatened By Taliban

By Associated Press
September 26, 2009

POL-I-KUMRI, Afghanistan — Growing Taliban influence in northern Afghanistan is threatening a new military supply line painstakingly negotiated by the U.S., as rising violence takes hold on the one-time Silk Road route.

The north has deteriorated over just a few months, showing how quickly Taliban influence is spreading in a once peaceful area. Local officials say the Taliban are establishing a shadow government along the dilapidated road that ultimately could prevent vital supplies carried in hundreds of trucks every week from reaching the military. It also raises the danger that the supplies could end up in militant hands as fodder for suicide attacks.

People in Baghlan and Kunduz provinces complain that international forces, the government in Kabul and aid have passed them by in favor of more troublesome regions. Militants are taking advantage of that resentment, and control by either Afghan or international forces is slipping.

"For the past two to three years, it's deteriorated day by day," said Ahmad Jawid, 43, a car dealer who sat in the shade with a half-dozen friends watching the highway in Baghlan's provincial capital, Pol-i-Kumri. "The people are demoralized."

A young man in the group had an easy smile but spoke bitterly on Wednesday when asked about the Taliban.

"I'm engaged and I can't go to the village of my fiancee," said 23-year-old Farshad, who like many Afghans goes by only one name. The village fell to the Taliban before the wedding could be planned. "I'm going to wait for the situation to get worse or get better. Otherwise I'll have to become a Talib."

Just to the north, Kunduz province is home to the first leg of the highway. The full northern route, which starts in Europe and snakes through Central Asia to Afghanistan, was cobbled together by the U.S. earlier this year after Taliban violence repeatedly disrupted the two main Pakistani routes.

Local officials and analysts say the militants want to show they can control the north and take over the supplies. Taliban militants hijacked two fuel trucks on the highway on Sept. 4, and German forces in Kunduz called in an airstrike by U.S. fighter pilots, saying they feared the trucks could be used in suicide bombings. Thirty civilians and 69 armed Taliban died in the strike, according to a probe by an Afghan presidential commission.

"The mere fact that the trucks were hijacked, the mere fact that we had this level of challenge to the government's control and sovereignty to me shows we need an effort here," U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in a recent news conference.

Kunduz was among the last Taliban strongholds during the 2001 U.S. invasion that drove the Islamic government from power, and — until this year — had been relatively peaceful, despite a largely Pashtun population sympathetic to the militants. That began to change after the Taliban solidified control in the south as U.S. supply lines from Pakistan came under increasing attack.

Afghan Policy: The 5 Votes That Matter

What Next In Afghanistan? The Five People Obama Is Asking.

President Obama has said he is reviewing US strategy in Afghanistan. Here are five of the most important people he is listening to – and what they might be telling him.

By Mark Sappenfield
Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)
September 24, 2009

When he announced his administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan this spring, President Obama added an important asterisk.

“Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course,” he said March 27. “We will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.”

Now, he is making good on that promise.

Mr. Obama has already held one meeting of his top foreign policy and military advisers to discuss the Afghan war, according to news reports. Several more are expected, beginning next week.

What comes out of this high-level review could determine whether tens of thousands more American troops head to Afghanistan or whether America essentially pulls back and focuses on targeted counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda.

Here is what is known about where the members of the National Security Council might stand.

President Obama
Back in March, Obama said his goal was “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”

He has consistently repeated that goal. But his strategic calculus about how to do that appears to be changing.

Media reports suggest that Obama has been shaken by the allegations of widespread fraud in Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 presidential elections. The results have sowed doubt about whether President Hamid Karzai is a reliable partner.

Also a factor is the dire battlefield assessment by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is expected to request as many as 40,000 more troops. At a time when Obama is strained to his political limit by the healthcare debate, the prospect of having to sell an Afghan troop surge is decidedly unpalatable.

The shift in Obama’s outlook was evident Sunday, when Obama told “Meet the Press”: “I’m not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face.”

The comment contrasted strikingly to the tone of an Aug. 17 speech – three days before the Afghan election – when he said that the war in Afghanistan “is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

Vice President Joe Biden
So far, Vice President Biden has been the most outspoken critic of expanding the Afghan war.

In different venues, he has proposed different courses of action.

In an interview with CNN, he advocated a wait-and-see approach. He noted that Obama approved 21,000 more troops for Afghanistan in March, and not all of them have even arrived.

“They’re now only getting in place; they’re not all fully in place and deployed,” he said, calling discussion of adding troops “premature.”

More controversial, however, is his advocacy of a plan to scale back US forces and move toward a narrower counterterrorism strategy. In short, the US military would use missiles fired from drones and special forces operations to attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan and prevent their return to Afghanistan.

Such a strategy would return to the central goal – targeting Al Qaeda – without having to rebuild a corrupt and impoverished nation.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Like Obama, Secretary Clinton has said she is open to any options going forward, so long as they keep Al Qaeda at bay.

“If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast Al Qaeda would be back in Afghanistan,” she said in an interview with PBS’s “NewsHour” Monday.

But Clinton was not necessarily swayed by McChrystal’s assertion that the US must add more troops to accomplish this.

“I can only tell you there are other assessments from, you know, very expert military analysts who have worked in counterinsurgencies that are the exact opposite [of McChrystal’s],” she said. “So what our goal is, is to take all of this incoming data and sort it out.”

National Security Adviser James Jones
While General Jones has not given a recent indication of where he stands on Afghan strategy, past statements provide some potential insight.

On a trip to Afghanistan in June, Jones told commanders not to expect any more troops this year. Clearly, much has changed since then. McChrystal had just been confirmed as the new US commander in Afghanistan, for instance.

Yet Jones seemed to think the time for troop requests ended when Obama announced his new strategy in March.

“Everybody had their day in court, so to speak, before the president made his decision,” he told McClatchy news service in an article published July 1. “We signed off on the strategy, and now we’re in the implementation phase.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike MullenMullen’s position in the debate is virtually certain.

He has endorsed McChrystal’s report and told Congress Sept. 15 that “a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces.”

Mullen’s viewpoints likely reflect those of the Pentagon brass, which means the full weight of military support is behind McChrystal and his assertion that the situation in Afghanistan “demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Gates appears to be the biggest wild card.

As secretary of Defense and a Republican whose opinion is widely respected both in the administration and in Congress, his opinion would be influential. Yet of all Obama’s main advisers, he has been perhaps the most obviously conflicted.

Gates is a strong supporter of McChrystal, having engineered the retirement of McChrystal’s predecessor in order to get his man into Afghanistan.

On Sept. 3, Gates said: “I’m very open to the recommendations and certainly the perspective of General McChrystal.” Yet in general, Gates has been wary of adding more troops, fearing that it would make the US look like occupiers.