Word: mullens
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...processing, like an army of alien vegetative creatures. We landed in a wheat field just across the road from the district governor's pathetic headquarters. It was Day 45 after the operation to retrieve Marjah from the Taliban had begun, and the highest-ranking U.S. military official, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was paying a congratulatory visit to the area. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' offensive in Afghanistan...
...Mullen received a briefing from the local Marine commanders. The Taliban had been driven out of town but were still lurking about at night, trying to intimidate the locals. Then he was greeted by the provincial governor, Gulab Mangal, one of the few Afghan officials with a reputation for both probity and effectiveness. A shura consisting of about three dozen tribal elders was waiting under a sheer nylon tent adorned with local rugs. Mangal made an opening statement, explaining that most of these elders had turned against the outlandishly corrupt provincial Afghan government years ago (Mangal's immediate predecessor...
...Mullen later admitted he was touched by the pride of the elders and the simplicity of the requests. But he had to warn them, "I didn't come here today with any magic formula ... Inshallah, we will provide the services as soon as possible." The entire Marjah project - which is meant to be a model for all Afghanistan - will rest on the ability of the Afghan government to make good on that. The early returns are not promising. Commanding General Stanley McChrystal promised a "government in a box" that would unwrap itself as soon as the Taliban were tossed from...
...there was a distinct giddiness at NATO headquarters in Kabul. Senior military officials briefed the reporters traveling with Mullen and said, in effect, that the tide had turned. In several crucial southern sectors, the Taliban were demoralized. "We're putting unbelievable body blows onto the midlevel Taliban cadre," a senior U.S. official said, adding that he expected to be in a significantly stronger position within four months. The more wary military officers were worried about moving too quickly ahead of the Afghan government's capabilities. One called it "rushing to failure." Another called it "catastrophic success," a term last used...
...optimism will soon be tested in Kandahar, the second largest Afghan city. "Kandahar is as critical to this war as Baghdad was to Iraq," Mullen says. But the military's description of the upcoming battle is curious: there won't be one. There will be a shift in the local gestalt, bypassing or re-engaging or seducing the local strongman, Ahmed Wali Karzai (the President's half brother); the Afghans will cobble together their own political solution, somehow. There will be some operations against the Taliban, mostly to prevent them from entering the city; indeed, U.S. troops may not show...