rssThe Largest Marine Operation Since Vietnam
Thursday, July 02, 2009 at 10:54 am
- 5 Comments
Underway in southern Afghanistan. There’s not a whole lot I can add from Washington (or, actually, Detroit, where I’m blogging from right now) to Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s on-the-ground report. Brig. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, the Marine commander in the area, is very well respected by everyone I’ve spoken to, and his admonition that “We’re not going to drive to work. We’re going to walk to work” represents best population-centric counterinsurgency practices. The mission objective appears to be denying the Taliban shadow government in the Helmand River Valley the freedom of operations it currently enjoys by denying it territory and providing an access point for the Afghan government’s writ in a place it doesn’t substantively exist.
“Our focus is not the Taliban,” Nicholson told his officers. “Our focus must be on getting this government back up on its feet.”
But civilian resources, both Afghan and coalition, are meager. Chandrasekaran reports that there are only two U.S. diplomats along with the 4,000 Marines. That presence is supposed to increase — to a dozen. Does that resourcing sound sensible, given the objective? More importantly, the Afghan civilian resources devoted to the mission are the donut hole in Chandrasekaran’s piece: the local leaders have fled, fearing the Taliban. Nicholson’s very ambitious goal is to hold a local council next week.
He’s also encouraging his Marines to show restraint in order to build local trust:
“We’re not going to measure your success by the number of times your ammunition is resupplied. . . . Our success in this environment will be very much predicated on restraint,” he told a group of officers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines on Sunday. “You’re going to drink lots of tea. You’re going to eat lots of goat. Get to know the people. That’s the reason why we’re here.”
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5 Comments
Pingback posted July 2, 2009 @ 2:29 pm
[...] Spencer Ackerman posts, here and here. Ackerman: While I’m inclined to agree with the argument that a counterinsurgency [...]
Pingback posted July 2, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
[...] The Largest Marine Operation Since Vietnam [Washington Independent] [...]
Comment posted July 2, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
Whaaat? Telling our people not to go on some kind of sociopathic mad killing spree of racist and religiously bigoted destruction? How is that going to placate the conservatives like Cheney?
Comment posted July 3, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
One organizer per 100,000 residents is the standard ratio for community organizing when all you need to do is build the org(More staff can be added when you need to mobilize the community, and can be recruited locally). You also want a Directorate for coordinating multiple communities, optimally within State or Provincial lines for legal and cultural ease; this should be two or three people, with technical support staff (telecommuting possible but not encouraged). The same can be repeated on the National level. You'll want to hire and place staff one layer at a time, starting with the highest level of coordination you know you'll need: so first a couple of field staff for the whole country, then a couple of field staff for each territory to be organized(in this case just 1: Helmand) then a field organizer for every 100,000 residents. This is how Obama won the Presidency.
Thus I can estimate that the population of Helmand is approximately 800,000, assuming all technical staff is kept safely out of the country and therefore not included in your dozen.
Pingback posted July 4, 2009 @ 1:02 am
[...] “You’re going to drink lots of tea. You’re going to eat lots of goat. Get to know the people. That’s the reason why we’re here.” -Brig. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson to officers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. [...]
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