Devil Dogs Away; Full of Coincidence
Feb 11 at 10:10am by David Tate
Time is almost up for the defenders of Marjah, Helmand Province. One thing, as sure as the air we need to breathe, Marjah will be taken.
My Connection to Marjah
For several months now, British forces have been clearing, pushing and holding areas around Marjah preparing for this attack. For at least the past two weeks, allied special forces teams have been infiltrating the town of 80,000 and taking out key enemy leaders.
However, this battle really started last May when reports started coming out of Marjah that Taliban fighters, including foreigners (particularly from Baluchistan, Pakistan) were beginning to mass as the Taliban retreated from a series of offensives British and American forces conducted in the Helmand River Valley and the area around Now Zad (which, btw, were the first major combat orders handed down by Obama – not the current situation in Marjah, which is widely being reported. Maybe they mean the first major action since Obama’s escalation was ordered?).
Dubbed the Taliban’s “logistic” base, it began gaining major importance to the Taliban after Garmsir fell to US Marines in May 2008. Coincidentally or not, 1st Battalion, Sixth Marines (1/6) led that attack and will be one of at least two Marine battalions pushing into Marjah.
Another battalion, 3rd Battalion, Sixth Marines (3/6), is also on the forward line of enemy territory (FLET). Coincidentally or not, that battalion is led by Lt. Col. Brian Christmas. Colonel Christmas was a former officer with BLT 1/6 when they deployed to Oruzgan in 2004. That deployment was hailed as the “most successful” in the history of the war, at that time, but was marred by the removal of its very intense battalion commander, Lt. Col. Asad Khan. Colonel Christmas is also the son of Gen. George R. Christmas who won the Navy Cross in the Battle of Hue in 1968.
The coincidences relate to me because I have embedded with both units, including time with then Captain Christmas in Oruzgan. It has been very interesting to follow the lineage of the units I have a tie with, and for the sake of the people in Marjah, I wish you all the best of luck.
My Thoughts
Key to the battle: The people. This will be the first major attempt to win reconciliation with the Taliban in this fashion. This is true. More recent reports suggest the enemy is a local force more so than a foreign force, which poses a serious dilemma.
So what does reconciliation mean? Fact is, many of the Pashtun Afghan Taliban are young men fighting for a way of life – for their culture. They believe their way of life and culture is being forcibly changed – that is why they fight and they aren’t necessarily “terrorists”. These are the people that need to be pulled away from the islamists. That is what this attack, and subsequent government/humanitarian effort, will aim to do.
Will it work? It is a tall order and will take TIME. Reporters going there six months after the attack and reporting that “nothing is being done”, will be missing the story. Marjah can be evaluated in 5-10 years for accuracy.
The key to a successful outcome will require some serious discipline. If the Marines turn this city into rubble, the battle will already be lost. You can bet that the Taliban will try to create a mass civilian casualty event which will forever prevent the government from having a cooperating population. If the Taliban are preventing people from leaving and allied forces call in close air support on every house they take fire from, the allies will lose this battle.
2 Responses for "Devil Dogs Away; Full of Coincidence"
Ben Paz
February 17th, 2010 at 12:59 am
1Hello David, I’ve been checking every few days looking for your posts and am glad you’re at it again. The government-in-a-box concept, where an area gets military saturation briefly, superiority is maintained and a semblance of government (from Kabul) is installed seems like it could work. Does it seem to you like it could possibly work, say, for a year or two?
David Tate
February 18th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
2I think that people need to look at this kind of like the progress of America from the Civil War forward. No matter how you slice this, Afghanistan will need long term partnership. Will this strategy work? It can work, but the variables are many. The biggest variable being the government. Until the government can provide the services the people need, they’ll just turn to those that can. Even worse is the fact that if you don’t do something quickly, you will lose that window of opportunity that you have to prove to the Afghan people of Marjah, for example, that the government means business.
I think the most frustrating thing I encounter is the inability for people to fully understand the enormous difficulties on the ground and that western time means NOTHING in Afghanistan. We are in the EARLY stages of a nation-building project that should see a US involvement for decades to come if we are going to do this right.
It’s going to be expensive, but the payoff is immense:
1. Stopping Al Qaida from using Afghanistan as a base to train and launch tens-of-thousands of operatives from its soil ever again.
2. Turning the world’s nearly exclusive opium producing region into a breadbasket for the whole of the Afghan country.
3. A defensive partnership keeps our troops in one of the most strategic areas on earth bordering China, Iran and Pakistan.
4. The people. While we cannot save the world, certainly the people of Afghanistan will benefit greatly from a long term partnership.
Marjah will be an interesting story to watch. However if we, as an international community, don’t see it through properly, it will be just a matter of time before we have to come back. So I say, look the bull in the eyes and take it on properly because if you turn your back you’re going to end up with a horn in your rear end.
PS – Thanks for staying with me. Had a rough year and I’m hoping to be back more regular in future months.
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