[News] US Military Noose Tightens On Marjah

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://countercurrents.org/martin120210.htm

US Military Noose Tightens On Marjah

By Patrick Martin

12 February, 2010
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/afgh-f12.shtml>WSWS.org

Thousands of US Marines and Army troops have 
moved into position on the outskirts of Marjah, a 
town in central Helmand province, identified 
publicly by the Pentagon as the first major 
target of the offensive authorized by President Barack Obama.

The town is the largest population center under 
Taliban control and has been dubbed a “Taliban 
stronghold” in the US media in order to excuse in 
advance what are likely to be massive civilian 
casualties. Press reports citing military sources 
claim that up to 1,000 “militants” are making a 
stand in Marjah, lacing the roads and fields with 
land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

US officials described the attack as “the biggest 
offensive of the nine-year war,” and portrayed 
the impending battle as a turning point. The town 
was briefly occupied by British troops last 
spring, an attack whose purpose was to prevent a 
Taliban offensive against the Helmand provincial 
capital, Lashkar Gah, 25 miles to the northeast. 
The farming and market town was abandoned soon 
after capture because there were too few Afghan 
forces available to garrison it.

This time the intention is to seize the town and 
eliminate the Taliban presence in the surrounding 
district of Nad Ali, which has a total population 
of about 80,000. A massive force of some 15,000 
US, British, Canadian and Afghan puppet troops 
has been mobilized for Operation Moshtarak 
(Operation Together in the local language), 
approximately 15 times the number of Taliban fighters said to be in the area.

Reports in the British press, beginning with the 
Sunday Times of London February 7, claimed that 
British SAS troops, the equivalent of US Army 
Rangers or Navy Seals, had been sent into the 
area around Marjah and had killed as many as 50 
Taliban commanders. “Special forces guys have 
been going in on assassination missions with the 
aim of decapitating the Taliban force,” the Times 
reported. Leaflets naming some of the murdered 
men were then air-dropped over the town, in an 
effort to demoralize the Taliban fighters, although most cannot read.

British troops were said to be positioned 
directly north of Marjah, while soldiers in the 
US Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade and Marines were 
northeast of the town, moving down from Lashkar 
Gah, accompanied by Afghan puppet troops led by 
Canadian “advisers.” Another unit of Marines was 
moving on the town from the east, securing 
crossing points along the Helmand River.

Press reports said that Marines came under sniper 
fire beginning Tuesday, February 9, and that 
Cobra attack helicopters had been called in to suppress it.

The Marines have deployed the new Assault 
Breacher Vehicle, a 72-ton vehicle built to be 
relatively impervious to land mines and smaller 
IEDs, combining the functions of tank and 
bulldozer. The ABV is equipped with a 15-foot 
blade that plows 14 inches deep­detonating mines 
and also destroying fields. It also carries a 
rocket-fired linked-charge made of high-powered 
C4 explosive, which can blow up an entire minefield.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the 
Marines in southern Afghanistan said of Marjah: 
“This may be the largest IED threat and largest 
minefield that NATO has ever faced.”

The Pakistani newspaper Dawn carried an interview 
with a Taliban commander in Marjah, who said that 
the initial resistance his forces would engage in 
would be guerrilla warfare. “We are men from the 
villages, we know the area, we can hide our guns 
in the village and we can use them again when we 
have the opportunity,” he said. “The operation will not be successful.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross 
warned February 10 that “the current upsurge in 
military operations in Helmand... has resulted in 
a marked increase in the number of casualties 
requiring emergency medical treatment.” It added, 
“Staff working at the ICRC’s first aid post in 
Marjah have been seeing increasing numbers of war 
casualties.” Local officials in Helmand province 
said that fewer than 500 families have fled to 
escape the fighting, and that the bulk of the 
civilian population was still in their homes.

US officials have given repeated warnings of the 
offensive, naming the town they are targeting. 
While the American media has made much of these 
warnings, presenting them as an extraordinary 
effort to alert the population and avoid civilian 
casualties, there have been conflicting signals. 
Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said the 
population should be encouraged to flee, but US 
and British commanders have urged residents of Marjah to stay in their homes.

The Washington Post gave another reason for the 
advance notice, reporting, “U.S. and NATO 
commanders contend that telling Afghans that the 
operation is imminent also could help prevent 
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who gave his 
approval for the mission two weeks ago, from 
backing down in the face of pressure from tribal 
chieftains who have profited from Marjah’s drug industry.”

As with most military operations in Afghanistan, 
with or without media announcements, the 
offensive against Marjah would not be a secret to 
the Taliban guerrillas, who are based among the 
people in the area and can see and feel the 
impact of the efforts by US and NATO forces to prepare the battlefield.

The real attitude of the American and other 
imperialist forces towards the local population 
can be seen in a report carried Thursday in the 
Wall Street Journal, describing US military 
operations in the Pashmul area of Kandahar, the 
province immediately to the east of Helmand, and 
another major center of guerrilla opposition to the US-led occupation.

The article carries the blunt headline, “New 
Battles Test U.S. Strategy In Afghanistan:

Focus on Safeguarding Civilian Lives Frustrates Troops in Taliban Territory.”

It goes on to describe the mounting hostility of 
rank-and-file US soldiers and lower-ranking 
officers to the restrictions being placed on 
their use of firepower, in the name of reducing civilian casualties.

“Across southern Afghanistan, including the 
Marjah district where coalition forces are 
massing for a large offensive, the line between 
peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often 
blurred,” the Journal article reports. “American 
troops have dubbed Pashmul, a cluster of villages 
sprawling across the fertile belt of grape and 
poppy fields west of Kandahar city, ‘the heart of darkness.’”

The newspaper cites the estimate by the local US 
commander, Captain Duke Reim, that 95 percent of 
the local population are either Taliban 
themselves or help the Taliban. “People here are 
on the side of the insurgency and have no trust 
in the government,” District Gov. Niyaz Mohammad 
Serhadi told the newspaper. “Insurgents are in their villages 24 hours.”

The report continues: “Since assuming command of 
coalition troops last summer, U.S. Gen. Stanley 
McChrystal curtailed airstrikes, limited house 
searches, and put the onus on winning the 
population’s trust. Forgoing some attacks on the 
Taliban to spare Afghan civilians, the 
counterinsurgency theory goes, would eventually 
convince the local population to side with the 
U.S.-led coalition and Afghan authorities. In the 
meantime, however, new restrictions on American 
firepower can also exact a steep toll in American 
lives­and give the Taliban a tactical advantage.”

The Journal, voice of the most right-wing 
militarist faction of the US ruling elite, 
clearly objects to such restrictions on 
slaughtering the natives, and its reporter found 
similar feelings in the military ranks:

“Among front-line troops, many of them used to 
more liberal rules of engagement in Iraq, 
frustration is boiling over. ‘It’s like fighting 
with two hands behind your back,’ says Sgt. First 
Class Samuel Frantz, a platoon sergeant in Capt. 
Reim’s unit, the Charlie Company of the 1st 
Battalion of the 12th Infantry Regiment. ‘We’re 
so worried about not hurting the population’s 
feelings that we’re not doing our jobs’.”

Such sentiments are the predictable byproduct of 
the escalating resistance to the occupation of 
Afghanistan by the most powerful imperialist 
military force. These sentiments lead inexorably 
to the perpetration of Vietnam-style atrocities, 
in towns and villages that will become the Afghan equivalents of My Lai.

Meanwhile, the casualties among the occupiers 
will continue to rise, alongside the higher, but 
relatively unreported, death toll among the 
occupied. An explosion blasted a joint Afghan-US 
combat post in the eastern province of Paktia 
Thursday, injuring several US troops.

The Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday that 
British hospitals have been warned to prepare for 
the “very real risk” of increased casualties 
among troops participating in the Helmand 
offensive. It cited a National Audit Office 
report detailing growing strain on British 
medical facilities, including the possibility 
that some British hospitals would have to 
displace civilians to make way for more military patients.




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