The Coalition commanders in Afghanistan wonder if they can win the war.

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/207019

Echoes of Vietnam

Even the Coalition commanders in Afghanistan wonder if they can win the war.

Jul 16, 2009

Afghanistan is now Obama's War. He promoted it in his election campaign as the good war (in contrast to Iraq, the bad war). He sealed his ownership of it by ratifying his predecessor's decision to send more troops. His incoming staff dismissed prophecies that Afghanistan risked becoming a quagmire like Vietnam—consuming ever-larger numbers of troops for a steadily receding political goal—as unwarranted gloom. But as a make-or-break offensive gets underway in Afghanistan designed to neutralize the Taliban ahead of next month's presidential elections, similarities to Vietnam already loom.

The epicenter is Helmand province. Helmand has strategic value: it guards the southern approaches to the capital, Kabul; it produces nine tenths of the opium crop that funds the Taliban; and the Taliban have held sway there for years. Tactically, the problem is that Helmand, sharing a border with Pakistan, offers the Taliban (and their allies) access or withdrawal at will.

Operation Khanjar, as the U.S. offensive in Helmand is called, is already showing the hallmarks of failure. The 4,000 Marines there are finding it all but impossible to engage Taliban fighters in significant numbers; British troops, meanwhile, are getting picked off.

These are, of course, early days, and painful years in Iraq have left the U.S. military vastly smarter in counterinsurgency than the "search and destroy" tactics of Vietnam. But what's taking shape in Helmand province looks like an old story—two old stories, actually. As in much of Iraq through 2006, the U.S. has enough troops in Helmand to clear visible adversaries but not to hold the captured territory. In a Pentagon briefing of striking candor, the Helmand commander, Marine Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, acknowledged last week, "You can't be everywhere."

As in Vietnam a generation ago, the Marines are mounting dramatic helicopter-borne sweeps to get behind and cut off Taliban forces, but the Taliban are largely avoiding battle and melting away in classic insurgent fashion. "I can't tell you where they went," Nicholson said.

[Lasher]

1. The time to wonder such a thing was before we went in.

Duh.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Same reasoning, same methods, same mistakes, same results.

And, a nice memorial to the wasted dead.

[Vidar]

3. Guess it's good that they're wondering. They can't.

[sharesunited]

4. At least evacuate the women before we leave.