Conn Hallinan | November 12, 2009
Editor: John Feffer
Why the Afghan Surge Will Fail Before the Obama administration buys into General Stanley McChrystal's escalation strategy, it might spend some time examining the August 12 battle of Dananeh, a scruffy little town of 2,000 perched at the entrance to the Naw Zad Valley in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
Dananeh is a textbook example of why counterinsurgency won't work in that country, as well as a case study in military thinking straight out of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Strategic Towns
According to the United States, the purpose of the attack was to seize a "strategic" town, cut "Taliban supply lines," and secure the area for the presidential elections. Taking Dananeh would also "outflank the insurgents," "isolating" them in the surrounding mountains and forests.
What is wrong with this scenario?
One, the concept of a "strategic" town of 2,000 people in a vast country filled with tens of thousands of villages like Dananeh is bizarre.
Two, the Taliban don't have "flanks." They are a fluid, irregular force, not an infantry company dug into a set position. "Flanking" an enemy is what you did to the Wehrmacht in World War II.
Three, "Taliban supply lines" are not highways and rail intersections. They're goat trails.
Four, "isolate" the Taliban in the surrounding mountains and forests? Obviously, no one in the Pentagon has ever read the story of Brer Rabbit, who taunted his adversary with the famous words, "Please don't throw me in the briar patch, Brer Fox." Mountains and forests are where the Taliban move freely.
The Taliban were also not the slightest bit surprised when the United States showed up. When the Marines helicoptered in at night, all was quiet. At dawn — the Taliban have no night-fighting equipment — the insurgents opened up with rockets, mortars, and machine guns. "I am pretty sure they knew of it
in advance," Golf Company commander Captain Zachary Martin told the Associated Press.
Pinned down, the Marines brought in air power and artillery and, after four days of fierce fighting, took the town. But the Taliban had decamped on the third night. The outcome? A chewed-up town and 12 dead insurgents — that is, if you don't see a difference between an "insurgent" and a villager who didn't get out in time, so that all the dead are automatically members of the Taliban.
"I'd say we've gained a foothold for now, and it's a substantial one that we're not going to let go," says Martin. "I think this has the potential to be a watershed."
Only if hallucinations become the order of the day.
To read the rest:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6571
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