Afghanistan Strategy Shifts to Focus on Civilian Effort

unhappycamper

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Wed Jun-09-10 05:56 AM
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Afghanistan Strategy Shifts to Focus on Civilian Effort

Canadian soldiers last month in Panjwai, southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. American and NATO troops will provide security for reconstruction projects.

Afghanistan Strategy Shifts to Focus on Civilian Effort
By ROD NORDLAND
Published: June 8, 2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan � The prospect of a robust military push in Kandahar Province, which had been widely expected to begin this month, has evolved into a strategy that puts civilian reconstruction efforts first and relegates military action to a supportive role.

The strategy, Afghan, American and NATO civilian and military officials said in interviews, was adopted because of opposition to military action from an unsympathetic local population and Afghan officials here and in Kabul.

There are also concerns that a frontal military approach has not worked as well as hoped in a much smaller area in Marja, in neighboring Helmand Province.

The goal that American planners originally outlined � often in briefings in which reporters agreed not to quote officials by name � emphasized the importance of a military offensive devised to bring all of the populous and Taliban-dominated south under effective control by the end of this summer. That would leave another year to consolidate gains before President Obama�s July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing combat troops.

In fact, there has been little new fighting in Kandahar so far, and the very word �offensive� has been banished.

Lance Cpl. Jarret King, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, makes his way through deep furrows while on patrol May 24 in Marjah, Afghanisatn. The patrol later come under a coordinated attack while on the outskirts of town.

By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 8, 2010 18:05:30 EDT

NAD ALI, Afghanistan � With the sun dropping lower on the baked horizon, two squads of Marines pushed north into the countryside here, uncertain what dangers were ahead.

Stepping out May 24 from Combat Outpost Reilly, the Marines knew a firefight was possible. The night before, insurgents used 82mm mortars and accurate sniper fire to repel a 100-man force of British troops from a nearby village, the Marines said. Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., planned to patrol a few miles farther north than normal, an experiment to see how stiff resistance was in another part of Helmand province.

The answer came at 6:11 p.m., nearly two hours after the second of the two squads left the wire. Shots rang out at the first group � Kilo�s 3rd Platoon, 2nd Squad � from about 250 yards to the northeast, as three or four insurgents unloaded a belt-fed 7.62mm PKM machine gun and AK47s. Single AK47 shots snapped by close enough that some of the Marines thought they were under attack by a sniper.

Nearby, members of the company�s 3rd Platoon, 3rd Squad, rushed to help. About 350 yards to 2nd Squad�s west, they scrambled from compound to compound, close enough that they could hear the staccato crackle of gunfire on the evening air.

~snip~

No Marines were killed or wounded in the attack, but the incident highlights how tenuous the security situation is in and around Marjah, the former Taliban stronghold that Marines assaulted in February. Marjah used to be a part of Nad Ali but was made its own district after the assault. Tens of thousands of civilians live here.

unhappycamper comment: OK, you fuckers have had 60,000 American troops (and at least as many contractors) added to Afghanistan and you can't hold the rural community of Marjah. You gerrymandered Marjah out of Nad Ali and you cannot hold it.

You can't do a Fallajuh style of flattening Kandahar because it will piss of the natives.

WTF are we doing there? The United States is falling apart we need to spend a trillion dollars on the military a year to make us 'safe'?

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