[News] US Military Noose Tightens On Marjah
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Feb 12 19:04:28 EST 2010
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 Armys 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 ICRCs 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 Marjahs 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
populations 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. Its like fighting
with two hands behind your back, says Sgt. First
Class Samuel Frantz, a platoon sergeant in Capt.
Reims unit, the Charlie Company of the 1st
Battalion of the 12th Infantry Regiment. Were
so worried about not hurting the populations
feelings that were 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.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20100212/59630252/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list