Time for an Afghan Tornado
Posted on 10/28/2007 12:49:07 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
KABUL, Afghanistan - Days after Taliban fighters overran Musa Qala a U.S. commander pledged that Western troops would take it back. Nine months later, the town is still Taliban territory, a symbol of the West's struggles to control the poppy-growing south.
But a string of recent battles around Musa Qala, won overwhelmingly by American Special Forces, signal a renewed U.S. focus on the symbolic Taliban stronghold.
An Afghan army commander said Sunday that U.S. and Afghan forces have taken over the area around the town and that Afghan commanders are holding talks with Musa Qala's tribal leaders to persuade them to expel the Arab, Chechen and Uzbek foreign fighters who roam its streets alongside the Taliban militants.
U.S. Special Forces soldiers accompanied by Afghan troops killed about 80 fighters during a six-hour battle outside Musa Qala on Saturday, the latest in a series of increasingly deadly engagements in Helmand province — the world's largest poppy-growing region and the front line of Afghanistan's bloodiest fighting this year.
There have been at least five major battles in the area since Sept. 1, including Saturday's fighting, and Special Forces troops have killed more than 250 militants, according to coalition statements.
"Musa Qala is part of the overall concept here, denying the Taliban the ability to control northern Helmand," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. "Our goal is to stop them from accomplishing that ... We're in Musa Qala and we're going to stay there."
The vast majority of Western forces in Helmand are British, though U.S. Special Forces troops are also active in the province.
Taliban militants overran Musa Qala on Feb. 1, four months after British troops left the town following a contentious peace agreement that handed over security responsibilities to Afghan elders.
Days after the Taliban takeover a U.S. military spokesman, Col. Tom Collins, said NATO and Afghan forces would take back the town "at a time and place that is most advantageous."
Lt. Col. Richard Eaton, a spokesman for British troops in Helmand, said that "nothing in Afghanistan is ever straightforward."
"You can't do everything simultaneously. That is not how a counterinsurgency works," Eaton said. "As (the commander of NATO's forces in Afghanistan) has said, we will deal with Musa Qala at a time of our choosing."
Eaton also did not rule out the possibility of future peace talks in the town, saying that the solutions to insurgencies are political.
Brig. Gen. Ghulam Muhiddin Ghori, a top Afghan army commander in Helmand, said the foreign fighters are running training camps near Musa Qala to teach militants how to carry out suicide and roadside bomb attacks. But he said no big military operations are being launched to overtake the town itself because of a fear of civilian casualties.
"Afghan and coalition forces have surrounded the Musa Qala district center. We have started negotiations with tribal leaders there to take over Musa Qala from the Taliban," Ghori told The Associated Press. "The tribal leaders are also worried about these Taliban because the foreign fighters — Arabs, Chechens, Baluchs and Uzbeks — they are in Musa Qala."
Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. More than 5,200 people have died this year due to the insurgency, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.
The latest Musa Qala battle began Saturday when Taliban insurgents attacked a combined U.S. coalition and Afghan patrol with rockets and gunfire, prompting the combined force to call in attack aircraft, resulting in "almost seven dozen Taliban fighters killed," the U.S.-led coalition said.
The coalition said four bombs were dropped on a trench line filled with fighters, resulting in most of the deaths. It said there were no immediate reports of civilian casualties.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, declined to talk about Musa Qala at a news conference in Kabul on Sunday. Speaking on a separate topic, he said it could take between 18 months and two years for Afghan units to be able to conduct major operations on their own.
Rodriguez said Afghan forces excel at small-unit tactics and coordinating with the Afghan people but still need to improve their command structure, the use of air power, their logistics support and medical capabilities.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, said an investigation into allegations of civilian casualties in Wardak province on Oct. 22 found that no civilians had been killed. A provincial council member at the time said 12 civilians had been killed, but ISAF said the investigation found that the allegations were "without merit."
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Associated Press reporter Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Liberals and Main Stream Press (which, after all are just a branch of liberals) are hoping with every fiber of their beings that something, anyting will go wrong that can be construed against the good old U S of A.
” but ISAF said the investigation found that the allegations were “without merit.” ............. Only if you don’t work for the AP or our MSM, of course.
Loser! Your wishywashiness has and will continue to cost lives.
He is simply stating a fact. After the military victories, the solution is, and always has been, political.
It is only the propaganda of the MSM that has redefined this to mean that the military should have no role.
To redefine simple terms to your advantage is the height of effective political lies.
Middle East ping
Sweet!
Don’t fool yourself. Politics has no place in this fight. Either we crush their will to oppose us or we won’t have won.
yup, so be it, the rats have to leave the nests from time to time tho.. need to keep a predator or two up or available.. ;-)
i wouldn’t fool yourself either. without political and social reconciliation after the war then the problems will still persist without being confronted. Sure, things would quieten down for a bit, but it would explode in violence once more at a later date.
We stuffed the Germans after WW1 and look what happens twenty years later...
Only a fool deals in absolutes.
Time for an Afghan Tornado
Thanks, that is an excellent counter example to the idea that politics plays an important role. We didn't crush the German will in WWI, settling for a political accomodation, and payed dearly for it. It has been thus throughout history. Rome settled two wars politically only to have to eventually totally destroy Carthage. As conservatives, we're supposed to respect history's lessons.
The Versailles treaty didn't "accommodate" anyone but the French and Wilson - they got to pound burdensome restriction, restitution, and humiliation on the country of Germany, he got the League of Nations.
Hitler's allure, aside from being backed with muscle and contempt for society in general, rose from popular hatred for the terms they'd accepted. By the time a decade had passed all the treaty conditions remained in place but no one had the will to enforce them, "politics" failed to sustain a bad diplomatic solution but failed also to correct the basic problem. Germans were still suffering from the terms of the treaty but, most important, their pride had been mauled and - like today's islamists and socialists - it had to be someone else's fault.
The 20's were largely a lost decade in Germany, by the early 30's much of the population wanted a pay-back.
Stalin was on the scene by then, no Tsar, no Iron Chancellor, and "democracy" was a parody. The world was splitting at a different fault line than before and that - idealogical - split existed within most of the nations on either side with very little middle ground. Remember that many western leaders believed Hitler was good for Germany at first because of their general agreement that the treaty had been too harsh, and the fear that Marx's form of socialism might win out over Hitler's brand of socialism. (Oh, and remember that the trains were running on time and the autobahns were nifty.)
Whatever this might prove, it should prove that AFTER the military makes it possible for the diplomats to "fix things" is the time to depersonalize the fight and address governments, systems, rights and obligations; it is not the time to beat up on the general populace represented by whoever you were fighting. We failed to learn that lesson from our own North/South war and failed to stop it after WWI. We got it right after WWII but even so - the UN and EU are fair indications that nothing is permanent.
End of periodic rant.
Was the Versailles treaty an unconditional surrender on the part of the Germans? Was their government wiped out and replaced with one of our devising? Was the German military abolished?
And about Versailles being an unconditional surrender. After it was signed, do you think the Allies legitimately could have changed the terms, say doubling reparations, without German consent?
Err...I’m not entirely sure you’re as right on as you think you are. Germany was punished economically for the war, and as a result brought about the hyper-inflation of the mid-20’s and early 30’s. This brought rise to fascism, and the idea that Germany had been taken to task for what was essentially a war for the sake of a war. On all sides. (Anyone thinking the cause was the death of Archduke Ferdinand is, well, stupid)
There was no reconciliation with the country, its economy in ruins from all the reparations they were forced to pay. I dont think you truely understand the social fallout from the first world war, in all European nations.
If you’re using the Roman Empire as a benchmark for your countries actions, then I might add that you need to tone it down a bit. That is from a bygone era, while human beings dont change a great deal in a thousand years of evolution, you can never solve a conflict through military means alone. I know this, cos as a Brit I have lived through the Troubles and the War in Northern Ireland. I have seen what a solely militiristic approach to a problem engenders on the local population. Radicalisation, revolt, revolution. Now tell me these things didn’t happen to Germany after WW1.
I rest me case, M’lud.
The point about Rome isn't so much a model as a historical observation (conservatives are suppposed to care about such things) that they too settled for a political settlement and so had two more wars against Carthage.
And finally, getting back to the original issue, we must completely crush the Taliban, not negotiate with them or their sympathizers.
To totally crush the Taliban, I reckon that Pakistan would need NATO support in the Waziristan provinces. Thats not going to happen, and its a fact that the militants are the strongest force in the area, when compared to the soldiers and paramilitaries of the Pakistani army.
I think the best we can do is to free Afghanistan from the Taliban influence and build the country up so it can support itself and interact in the global economy. The ethos of the Taliban however, isn’t going to vanish even if we win this war. Its just going to export elsewhere.
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