More From The "No Shit" Category

By Lt Col P

My fellow Marines continue to lead the way down in Helmand:

Before a battalion of U.S. Marines swooped into this dusty farming community along the Helmand River in early July, almost every stall in the bazaar had been padlocked, as had the school and the health clinic. Thousands of residents had fled. Government officials and municipal services were nonexistent. Taliban fighters swaggered about with impunity, setting up checkpoints and seeding the roads with bombs.
In the three months since the Marines arrived, the school has reopened, the district governor is on the job and the market is bustling. The insurgents have demonstrated far less resistance than U.S. commanders expected. Many of the residents who left are returning home, their possessions piled onto rickety trailers, and the Marines deem the central part of the town so secure that they routinely walk around without body armor and helmets.

"Nawa has returned from the dead," said the district administrator, Mohammed Khan.

It hasn't been easy, not at all, but from the point of view of COIN operations, this is straightforward. Emplace yourself among the population, secure the population, gain the trust of the population; then, you can begin the rebuilding. The displaced enemy will have to fight you to retake the ground, and will have work uphill against their own evil and improvident ways. Then you transition and move on.

Nonmilitary reconstruction efforts have also begun to gather momentum. The battalion's two civilian advisers are working with a team of U.S.-funded contractors to provide agricultural assistance to farmers, the Obama administration's top priority for Afghan reconstruction. The contractors plan to hand out shovels, gloves and even tractors over the next few months. They hope the goods will increase prosperity and jobs and reduce the number of disaffected young men who want to fight for the Taliban.
"Everyone makes promises to us -- the Americans, our government, even the Taliban," said Mohammed Ekhlas, a snowy-bearded elder of the Noorzai tribe. "If the Marines and the people in our government are true to their words, then there will be peace in Nawa. If not, there will be fighting again."

Note, please, that this is in the heart of Pashtunistan, the Taliban's front and back yards. The loss of one town and the inability to take it back is a significant set-back for them, and a victory for us. Our men on the ground are obviously willing to stick it out. Are we?

October 22, 2009 03:40 AM Afghanistan

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The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 10/22/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.

David M · October 22, 2009 09:30 AM

If we had a President who backed our troops and had a plan, like Bush did (tough nuts, Democrats, you know it's true), this would be over by now.

democratsarefascists · October 22, 2009 01:11 PM

Didn't we have a President "who backed our troops and had a plan" and who wasn't just like bush, but was Bush for eight years? So your saying he would have accomplished in 8 months what he couldn't do in 8 years? Really?

republicansarepathetic · October 22, 2009 05:09 PM

Obama ran for President on a "Afghanistan is the good war" platform. He constantly talked about using covert warfare and SPECOPS to combat the Taliban. His choice to command ground forces is tops in that field but now that that General is demanding more ground forces Obama is half stepping because his far left base is against the war PERIOD
As usual instead of showing he has a pair, Obama reverts to form and pisses and moans that it's ALL DUBYAS FAULT instead of being a man and making the tough but correct move to support the troops. Either back them or get'em the hell out. Good men and women are dying while this a--hole dithers.

DEMSAREWUSSIES · October 22, 2009 05:42 PM

Quit sniveling 'cause Bush hasn't wrapped up Afghanistan.

It's a historical fact that, even though it was the Japanese who actually attacked us at Pearl Harbor, FDR made the conscious decision to attack and subdue the GERMANS in NORTH AFRICA and EUROPE and fight a holding action in the Pacific.

(It wasn't FDR's fault the US Navy was able to seize the initiative so quickly. With the additional help of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Pacific was won only a few months after Europe.)

The US' immediate goal in Afghanistan, to break the back of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, was reached within weeks. Elections were held even sooner than in Iraq.

Schools were reopened and women freed from stifling Taliban rule.

(No, we haven't caught bin Laden. But FDR/Truman never captured Hitler and the Emperor of Japan was allowed to keep his throne...so you can all stop using that talking point too.)

It's Obama who's caught in his own contradictory rhetoric. Instead of confronting his own myriad lies, Obama is attacking the messenger.

Obama is a lying, spineless little coward who can't take criticism because dealing with his own lies would destroy his very soul.

Tailgunner · October 22, 2009 06:14 PM

Nice work, Marines. The country supports you even if the White House can't make up it's mind. F

F · October 23, 2009 06:35 AM

It's always going to be "Bush did it" with folks like republicansarepathetic. I guess it's probably Bush's fault that Obama has no balls as well. Or that he's unable to come to a decision on Afghanistan until he knows which way the political winds blow on his health care takeover.
Leftards. You can't live with them, and you can't legally shoot them.

Diggs · October 23, 2009 07:07 AM

Cross-posting something I wrote for Gatewaypundit the other day:

In the case of the prior administration, there was a reason that the Af-Pak theater didn’t get additional troops: they were being used for a higher priority task; Iraq. This was completely consistent with the approach taken when we gave up the two-regional-war scenario for force sizing. It used to be that our military forces were sized to fight and win two regional conflicts at the same time but we changed that to a win-hold-win strategy after the cold war ended. This meant that we sized our forces to be able to win one regional conflict while holding ground in another, then be able to pivot and win the second. Sound familiar? President Obama, the first conflict has been won (to the extent that forces are being freed up from Iraq) and it is time to step up and win the second conflict.

Formerly known as Skeptic · October 23, 2009 07:46 AM

"So your saying he would have accomplished in 8 months what he couldn't do in 8 years? Really?"

Dems went around saying that Bush should have stopped 9/11 after 8 months in office even though the bad guys had 8 years to prepare under Clinton.

The difference is that Afghanistan has been front page news for the past 8 years as compared to the 9/11 plotters who were just a bit secretive.

Locomotive Breath · October 23, 2009 08:14 AM

At no point did I say "Bush did it" as Diggs suggests. I simply questioned what democratsarefascists said. I agree with Formerely Known as Sceptic that troops were indeed put into Iraq instead of Afghanistan, but that was a mistake. I have no problem with people questioning Obama's handling of the wars. I do have a problem with the suggestion that Bush would've ended the war in the last eight months unlike Obama. That is ridiculous. I actually think Obama will send the troops that have been requested. I think the delay is simply a a way to pressure Karzai into doing what he needs to do. It's scary how dependent we are on the government of Afghanistan, but it's a reality.

republicansarepathetic · October 23, 2009 09:30 AM

For how long? Until our Dear Leader so "gallantly chickens out"?

ic · October 23, 2009 10:20 AM

"So your saying he would have accomplished in 8 months what he couldn't do in 8 years? Really?"

No. We weren't using COIN in AfPak then. Its something we learned and then proved in Iraq first. By it is entertaining to watch you flail away at your Strawman.

"republicansarepathetic"

Thats your chosen screen name? Yah, you need to get help.

Fen · October 23, 2009 12:21 PM

Fen - The "Strawman" was a direct response to a comment on this post that I responded to, so if its a Strawman, it is not mine. You don't think republicans are pathetic? That's fine. I chose the name after I saw someone using the name democratsarefascists, i just wanted to add a little balance. I didn't even get that inflammatory. While it's true the our COIN strategy came out of our experience is Iraq, my comment was simply stating that expecting the Afghanistan to be done with in 8 months under Obama was ridiculous, as democratsarefascists said.

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