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<a href="http://countercurrents.org/martin120210.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://countercurrents.org/martin120210.htm<br><br>
</a></font><font size=4><b>US Military Noose Tightens On Marjah<br><br>
</font><font size=3>By Patrick Martin <br><br>
</b>12 February, 2010<br>
<b><a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/afgh-f12.shtml">
WSWS.org</a><br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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).<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
The article carries the blunt headline, “New Battles Test U.S. Strategy
In Afghanistan:<br><br>
Focus on Safeguarding Civilian Lives Frustrates Troops in Taliban
Territory.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
“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.’”<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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:<br><br>
“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’.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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