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Death On All Sides as NATO Offensive Begins
The Marjah Offensive - What are The Prospects?
No sooner had combat begun than both sides were claiming to have inflicted losses on their enemies. The Nato-led troops claimed to have killed five Taliban, while the rebels said they had killed six foreign soldiers.
An Afghan villager, who was not detained, at the first compound that the Marines seized during an assault into Marja, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times) Operation Mushtarak
("Together" in Dari) aims to secure Marjah district, a long-time
Taliban bastion which is also reported to provide ten per cent of the
world's opium.
British Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth declared that "casualties are something that we have to expect", while British Engineer Group commander Lieutenant Colonel Matt Bazeley warned that "it is bloody dangerous out there".
"We are going into the heart of darkness," he told his troops.
Pro-government forces number 15,000, while estimates of Taliban numbers vary between 400 and 2,000. But the rebels have the advantage of having occupied the area for years, being hard to distinguish from civilians and, apparently, having good enough relations with local people to lead generals to fear that many may shelter Taliban fighters.
The Afghan and international troops of Isaf did not even try to profit from the element of suprise, announcing that the offensive would take place several days before it began.
"Whether western troops trumpet their intentions or not, the Taliban know when their enemies will launch their attacks," says Gilles Dorronsoro, of the Carnegie Peace Foundation.
Instead, the offensive was preceded by a welter of press releases, perhaps aiming to convince the public in the US and UK that something serious was going on. And helicopters dropped leaflets on the target area, warning the population to stay indoors, rather than flee.
But rights campaigners fear that there will be civilian casualties.
"I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians,' says Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power."
The Wall Street Journal reports that "frustration is boiling over" among frontline troops over more restrictive combat rules than those in place in Iraq.
"The line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," an editorial in the paper says.
Although civilian deaths are a source of enormous resentment in Afghanistan, the strategists insist they want to win hearts and minds. They plan to hand over power to pro-government officials as swiftly as possible, in line with President Hamid Karzai's repeated calls for "Afghanisation".
"We are going to arrive with Afghan governance as the tip of the spear," British General Nick Carter, who is the Nato commander for southern Afghanistan, told the BBC.
The principal aim of the offensive is to drive the Taliban out of Marjah, preferably forcing them right down to the southern border with Pakistan.
A decisive military defeat in Helmand would limit them to neighbouring Kandahar province, the western strategists hope. The aim is to hammer the rebels during this year's troop build-up, allowing withdrawal to start in 2011.
This is not the first offensive in Helmand.
When the British took over security in the province in 2006 their brief was modest - to control two population centres.
"But the British general in charge at the time all of a sudden decided to clean up the whole of Helmand province," says the Carnegie Peace Foundation's Dorronsoro. "It was a disaster."
"Then every year since you have a new offensive, which is to say that the only thing which explains this overinvestment in Helmand was the initial offensive which was compensated for by victory."
The model for Operation Mushtarak is Operation Khanjar ("dagger" in Dari and Pashtu), last summer's offensive in Garmser and Nawa districts.
It was judged a success as most of the Taliban fled, while heavily armed troops set up posts in key settlements and junctions. That was quickly followed by meetings, in which the pro-government forces' intention of staying was impressed on local elders.
But it failed in its aim to ensure security in August's presidential election, in which fraud was widespread in the south. Troops continue to suffer casualties from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which they are also likely to face in Marjah.
US and Nato commander General Stanley McChrystal has promised to follow military gains with development and aid. Government officials, police and army are poised to follow the combat troops into Marjah to establish control, according to Helmand governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal.
This time, the leaders of the pro-government forces insist, they intend to win and they intend to stay.
- Posted in
64 Comments so far
Show AllYes, this Operation Aghan Freedom will have the same end result as Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Nothing but a PR stunt.
Does PR stand for pulverized residents?
Hey, it's just collateral damage. Not tobe concerned.
I wish you would not use that kind of language here. It's pentagonspeak for "Dead, wounded and bloody women and children and men killed by foreign invaders"
"This time, the leaders of the pro-government forces insist, they intend to win and they intend to stay."
Win what? Stay at what cost?
"We are going into the heart of darkness," he told his troops.
"Operation Mushtarak ("Together" in Dari) aims to secure Marjah district, a long-time Taliban bastion which is also reported to provide ten per cent of the world's opium."
Those two quotes from the article reveal something about what this war is about. I only wish that they would stop this killing and for all to lay down their arms and just leave this country to its own fate.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "
You read that article? Why view the collapse of US society from the inside perspective? It's plenty amazing to watch from the outside.
The Marjah Offensive - What are The Prospects?
Preparing troops with "we are going into the Heart of Darkness"... "the insurgents have been there a long time".
Foreign invaders will get all the Hell they deserve.
What BULLSHIT ! -"The Heart of Darkness".
Nothing like a little racist propaganda for totally unnecessary bloodlust.
NATO and its Whoring Dominator Mentality is the creator of this "Darkness".
Yeaaa we all know how violent poppies make people, so violent they can not even stay awake.
Those Afghans should be doing some good ole USA draino Meth, like real killers do.
Citizens who allow war criminals to rule their nation are themselves war criminals.
The NATO installed Helmand governor Mangal, is, according to a previous CD article a mass raper of little boys.
International Law allows poppy cultivation.
The Taliban before NATO's war of aggression eliminated 90% of poppy cultivation in response to aid from the USA and UN.
The precursors for Heroin arrive through the Kyber Pass in tandem with USA military convoys.
The CIA is one of the largest drug cartels and has been dealing Heroin at least since Vietnam.
I believe the TAPI pipeline goes through Helmand. With two other pipelines planned just south of the Afghan border with Iran.
Citizens who allow war criminals to rule their nation are themselves war criminals.
Some of us have been doing everything we can to stop these wars even before they began.
I'm beginning to realize the full extent of the newspaper and TV blackout on anti-war demonstrations....they simply are not reported. And that makes them not exist...even though I've BEEN in them and seen them with my own eyes.
PaiaGirl 11:51 ------ Like the Big Island?
My " Citizens who allow ... "
It not meant to further frustrate those who are actually marching against the masters of war and who contribute as little as humanely possibly to support war crimes, but more towards the citizens who do pay for the wars and do not put their bodies in harms way.
Hey Glenn. More to the point: it would be all the parasites in Washington, D.C. and the shareholders/ceo's of all companies that make war goods. It would also include all the children of privilege whose inheritance will be the monies made from the murder and destruction brought about by producing the tools of war.
It might do to add that none of the above have anything to lose other than profits and the chance to indulge their love for spilling the blood of other people's children.
Sixteen bucks an hour on the assembly line bolting and riveting predator drones. Great work if you can get it.
Did anyone else feel like they were reading a passage out of Orwell's 1984?
How much farther from the North Atlantic can the Treaty Organization get?
Maybe Captain Heart-of-Darkness should read 'Heart of Darkness' and grasp to whom the title refers, or the central figure's logical conclusion to the policy of bearing enlightened civilization -- 'Exterminate all the brutes!' -- How far we've come in a century . . .
Turns out "Atlantic" was a typo-- it was supposed to be the "Northern Hemisphere Treaty Organization".
· Yr Obd't Servant
"the offensive was preceded by a welter of press releases, perhaps aiming to convince the public in the US and UK that something serious was going on."
Exactly, except I wouldn't say "perhaps" but almost certainly this is the intent of the warnings and of the whole foolish impossible operation. Borrowing from Patrick Cockburn, it's a "hearts and minds" operation designed--not for Afghan hearts and minds (that's gone with the of entry jackbooted invaders and aerial bombardment)---but to impress U.S. and U.K. (and other countries in the "coalition")that "something serious is going on." And, as a propaganda operation, it seems to be working as everything from the New York Times to the present French radio report is doing "heart of darkness", "terribly dangerous," "biggest operation since the beginning of the war" hyperbole to pump the hearts and minds of Americans and its "coalition" allies, at least to the point of throwing more money and more bodies into something that may be "serious" but is profoundly futile, as everybody with any "mind" clearly knows; and is profoundly immoral as well, as anyone of any "heart" clearly knows.
P.S. Al Jazeerha is saying today that President Karzai wants the U.S. to stop all raids on Afghan villages. Kind of twists into a pretzel of incongruity the announced aim of the Marjah invasion: to plant the flag of Afganistan on the town by the "end of the day," supposedly using mostly Afghan government troops to do the job. Is Karzai their commander?
Quality 'reporting' from the ruling class rag:
' The Wall Street Journal reports that "frustration is boiling over" among frontline troops over more restrictive combat rules than those in place in Iraq. '
Trained parrots usually come out with something more enlightening: "We needed to destroy it to save it". Or perhaps something more stupidly specific, albeit dated, "Napalm, carpet bombing and dioxin would have broken Charlie. Too bad the Hippies discovered My Lai was part of our mode of operation"
' The Wall Street Journal reports that "frustration is boiling over" among frontline troops over more restrictive combat rules than those in place in Iraq. '
Their real frustration is trying to get from one place to another. It seems the maps they use give the name of every town and village as My Lai.
"The line between a peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred". This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. How can you beat a people who see you as invaders and occupiers of their country. Guerilla warfare in Afghanistan with millions of Pashtun sympathizers is a lost cause, but TAPI or no TAPI; poppys are no poppys; it is not a lost cause for the extraordinary, evil MIC and the war profiteering racketeers!
- "The line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," an editorial in the paper says. -
Identifying future terrorists before they terrorize can be such a bitch.
The usual military idea will be to use human troops as targets. Thus, "the rebels said they had killed six foreign soldiers".
Aha! Now the 'rebels' have identified themselves! Thus,
"The Nato-led troops claimed to have killed five Taliban"
And that's how whack-a-terrorist is played.
And what's God doing all this time?
He is saying: When will they learn; when will they ever learn?
What God? Which God? If there was a god watching this shameful behavior and it wasn't moved to stop it, that's no god we'd need nor want.
God gives humankind free will. The fact that they choose to follow the wrong path is not God's fault, but the evil people who love war instead of living peacefully together.
Find the real enemies of peace to blame.
"God gives humankind free will."
Source?
God is an imaginary being. Don't expect it to call anytime soon.
"The line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," an editorial in the paper says.
I hope the WSJ doesn't think that this observation is something new. Why doesn't anyone, in particular the military, remember and learn from Vietnam? They say that Americans have notoriously short memories and nothing proves it more than our complete failure to apply past lessons to present situations.
It seems, to the detriment of all, that man is devolving, not evolving.
Yep, and don't forget Afghanisation is the SAME as Vietimesization that was tired at the end of the Vietnam war.
A year or so after America pulled out Saigon fell. So we want to try that again?
?
How about this, all American troops pull out except for say 5,000.
Those 5,000 handle all the larger crimes, I.E. if a warlord is executing locals send in a team to take the warlord out.
FTA: "Although civilian deaths are a source of enormous resentment in Afghanistan, the strategists insist they want to win hearts and minds."
As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." (sigh)
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
Yes, they will win hearts and minds by killing. It's always worked so well before.
NATO is the heart of darkness -- the heart of colonizing evil, of imperialism, of pillaging, of occupying other people's land to rob it of its wealth, of murdering its populations, of bullying its neighbors, of lying and propagandizing scum of the earth...
BABY KILLERS!!
We are in a race to the bottom and we will win.
"We are going into the heart of darkness," British Engineer Group commander Lieutenant Colonel Matt Bazeley told his troops.
Obviously, Bazeley hasn't fully grasped all the meanings of Joseph Conrad's novella.
The "Heart of Darkness" overwhelms all who enter it, not only those who are allegedly "evil" by virtue of being non-European.
The U.S./NATO offensive, like all their wars and occupations, is darkness on an even larger scale than that of alleged "Islamic terrorists" and "insurgents" who are fighting in their own countries against foreign invaders.
I just read that book for English class.
Conrad's point is once you step into the Heart of Darkness it consumes you...not the darkness can be tamed
Boys with grown-up "toys." We killed 5 of you. ... Well, yah-yah, we killed 6 of you.
Ridiculous ... and horrible. Life is precious. How dare we put such a low value on life by not really caring how many people got killed today, yesterday, last week ... and how many will be killed tomorrow.
It isn't as if there are no other ways to solve disputes, but for that you need real grown-ups--mature, honest, thoughtful and wise . And we seem to be extremely short of those kinds of leaders in the military field or behind the desks in Washington D.C.
It surely seems that the human beings available who purportedly serve us are devolved people missing some genetic brain material or have been heavily, heavily conditioned by all the wrong sources so their thinking is more robotic than human.
Pathetic.
Oh, yeah, I forget. The longer all this ridiculous nonsense goes on, the more money is made by the money-makers on arms and drone bombers and miitary vehicles, and the more likely it is we'll eventually secure all those borders for oil and gas pipelines and etcetera, and the more likely lucrative contracts will be handed out to the same-old, same-olds who pocket most of the filthy lucre after reconstructing a few buildings.
And back home, the gutting of the United States of America goes on.
/cm
"..to solve disputes, but for that you need real grown-ups--mature, honest, thoughtful and wise.."
You got that right!
It takes real intelligence and skillz to be diplomatic and mediate disputes.
For sure in short supply among our "leaders" (lead us straight to Hell).
One must wish to solve a dispute peacefully, when the USA ignores olive branches from Karzai and Omar it is sounding a clear message that the USA does not wish to negotiate foe peace.
Without any intent of trying to be facetious, I have to wonder what a truly partial observer, a "sentient anthropologist alien" if you will, with attributes we might describe as power of logic and common sense, would describe what he or she or it is observing happening on the Earth. This is insanity. All of it. Trillions for war. Nothing for health care. Trillions for banks. Nothing to stop foreclosures. One billion literally near starvation. A thousand billionaires. Israel urging the US to bomb Iran. Drone bombings. Wedding bombings. Hearts and Minds. CIA drug running. NSA eavesdropping. Google/NSA alliance. Patriot Act. Military Commissions Act. Targeted assassinations of US nationals. All Targeted Assassinations based upon flimsy at best "intelligence". Unpayable government debt. Borrowed money to finance illegal invasions and occupations. No declarations of war. Unilateral 'unitary' presidential bombings of Pakistan, no AUMF, no formal declaration required. These are the actions of a dictator, at least the second we've had counting Junior Bush. Denuding of rain forests. Rising ocean acidity and pollution. Many nuclear plants leaking tritium, not just Vermont Yankee, and yet we are going to build more of these monsters, calling them green. Waste? What waste? Look the other way. Let the next generation figure out what to do with it. Blood diamonds. Zimbabwe. Slave labor in China for cheap TV's. SUV's getting 15 mpg.
INSANE
NEEDLESSLY INSANE
And, for the price of it all we could have had energy alternatives to hydrocarbons in place a decade ago with no need for war for oil, war for pipelines, war for control of energy.
And that is the point of all these wars. For the defense industry to make money and for the US to take over stategic points all of the world. Why do we have bases in so many countries.And what is the damn difference between the US and Germany? How many countries to we need to invade until the world gets tired of us and takes it revenge?
Be All YOU Can Be - join the Army. Go to foreign lands and kill locals - or better yet, stay here in the States and sit at a remote-control war station. At the end of the night after killing your assigned targets, you can just go home. People will just love us and thank us and welcome us back, ya think?
A People To People Proposal For Attaining Peace On Earth And Goodwill To All Living Beings
Whereas, President Obama and Congress have proven themselves incapable of giving peace a chance,
and whereas, given the internet, there's never been a more opportune time for people to people interaction,
It is hereby proposed that there be a people to people online gathering between peacemakers here in America and Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, the terms of which could be (1) that in exchange for an immediate truce and end to the bloodshed, the U.S. and its NATO allies withdraw all their troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and (2) that instead of our government's unconditional support for the settler-state Israel, that it demand justice for the Palestinian people. It is anticipated that the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership will agree to such a proposal, whereupon, the pressure will be on the Obama administration to at least consider it. By that time the peace movement will have reconstituted itself enough so as to force the president's hand, thereby giving peace a real chance.
Great idea, yours truly.
Let's talk. miracleyes1sd@aol.com.
/cm
Maybe our forces of liberation and democratization should be using
PAINT BALLS for ammunition.
Just think then at the end of the day when the shooting is over we can just send in the cameras and document who we shot. If we could get the Taliban to use a different color paint ball, we could keep score and see who wins without really having to kill and maim.
this is really a great idea. I mean it. just why not? paintball, keep score, and get out.
i'm pretty sure the Iroquois settled at least some of their disputes by La Cross games
"the insurgents have been there a long time".
Um, would that be because they are NATIVES and have been there for at least 2,500 years?