Word: marjah
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...battle against the Taliban intensified recently when NATO and Afghan forces launched the largest offensive since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan more than eight years ago. Fifteen thousand NATO and Afghan troops laid siege to the Taliban stronghold of Marjah. The center of Helmand province's opium-poppy trade, a major source of Taliban funds, Marjah had long been a no-go area for NATO troops. At the same time, in the Pakistani port of Karachi, a raid on a seminary by CIA and Pakistani intelligence agents netted Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's military commander...
...prevent that from happening in Marjah, McChrystal is counting on his government in a box - a lineup of administrators who have prepped for months - to enforce law and order, provide basic facilities, build schools, create jobs and persuade local farmers to give up the poppy crop. But that's asking a lot from officials who have shown scant aptitude for doing a decent job elsewhere. McChrystal's plan calls for 80 prepacked governments to take root across Taliban-ruled territory over two years, but Afghanistan simply doesn't have that many clean, qualified and experienced bureaucrats, policemen, doctors and teachers...
...President has shown little inclination to ditch his corrupt cronies. Nor is there yet an Afghan security force capable of taking over from the Americans. Although U.S. commanders carefully talk up the contributions of the 4,500 Afghan National Army soldiers (two had been killed) and police in the Marjah operation, it's no secret that the U.S. Marines and British troops are doing the heavy lifting. McChrystal's target of a 134,000-man Afghan National Army by late fall - up from 104,000 now - seems hopelessly optimistic. Training is slow, and there's a scarcity in the ranks...
...Haqqanis are insurance against such an eventuality. Baradar's detention has not yet changed Pakistan's assessment of how its own interests may best be defended. Remember, too, that no matter how well Operation Moshtarak seems to be going, many Taliban commanders think they are winning. Whatever happens in Marjah, they can point to a widening influence across Afghanistan. They also have been heartened by last week's announcement that the 2,000-strong Dutch contingent will be departing this year because Holland's coalition government was unable to agree on an extension of its deployment - another indication...
Mullah Omar and his colleagues, taking Obama on his word that he wants to begin a U.S. pullout by July 2011, have said they intend to outlast the occupiers. If that means ceding strongholds like Marjah only to pop up elsewhere, then that's what they will do. They have been doing it for years. Call it insurgency...