Word: helmand
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...year won't be headed to the Afghan-Pakistani border, where the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies are launching regular and deadly attacks against U.S. and allied troops. Instead, they'll be concentrated on defending the capital, Kabul, from Taliban attacks and also on reinforcing British troops in Helmand and other parts of the south. That will do little to assuage the criticism that the limited U.S. and NATO deployments in Afghanistan have left Afghan President Hamid Karzai with little more real authority than the mayor of Kabul or alter the reality that the Taliban currently enjoy the momentum...
...some ways, Helmand province - which I visited with the German general Egon Ramms, commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command - is a perfect metaphor for the broader war. The soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force are doing what they can against difficult odds. The language and tactics of counter-insurgency warfare are universal here: secure the population, help them build their communities. There are occasional victories: the Taliban leader of Musa Qala, in northern Helmand, switched sides and has become an effective local governor. But the incremental successes are reversible - schools are burned by the Taliban, police...
...British troops in Helmand are fighting with both hands tied behind their backs. They cannot go after the leadership of the Taliban - still led by the reclusive Mullah Omar - which operates openly in the Pakistani city of Quetta, just across the border. They also can't go after the drug trade that funds the insurgency, in part because some of the proceeds are also skimmed by the friends, officials and perhaps family members of the stupendously corrupt government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Helmand province is mostly desert, but it produces half the world's opium supply along a narrow...
Another thing you should understand: thousands of U.S. troops are expected to be deployed to Helmand and Kandahar provinces next spring. They will be fighting under the same limitations as the British, Canadian, Danish and Dutch forces currently holding the fort, which means they will be spinning their wheels. And that raises a long-term question crucial to the success of the Obama Administration: What are we doing in Afghanistan? What is the mission...
...flew by helicopter from Helmand to the enormous NATO base outside Kandahar to learn that three Canadian soldiers had been killed that morning in an ambush. I stood in a small, bare concrete plaza as the Canadian flag was raised, then lowered to half-staff. Next the Danish flag and finally the NATO flag were raised and left to rest at half-staff. A small group of soldiers from assorted countries stood at attention and saluted as the flags rose and fell. There were no American flags this day, but there soon will...