Marines in Marjah - and how about the Afghan National Army?

At his "The Captain's Journal," Herschel Smith has quite another view of what is happening than the news being leaked from official sources.

Writing about "The Battle for Marjah", Mr. Smith asks what is the ANA (Afghan National Army) really doing? And answers his question with “As Marines unloaded equipment needed to build an outpost at Five Points [and] others manned 'fighting holes' [foxholes]," the Afghan soldiers stayed in their trucks, with engines running, and heaters "at full blast.”

About the dozen noncombatants killed, Herschel Smith says, "Predictably, McChrystal has prostrated himself before Karzai. To be sure, we should pay the family, Marine officers should sit with surviving kin, and so on and so forth." This public posturing, however, he considers a "silly overreach, as if we are attempting to convince the American or Afghan public that there is any such thing as riskless war – war conducted in laboratories by men wearing white coats, where mistakes are mere failures to follow procedure and can be fixed by retraining men and retooling paperwork."

He concludes his analysis with, "It’s all a lie. The noncombatant deaths aren’t a mistake in procedure or protocol. They are a tragedy of war, a tragedy that can only be avoided by losing the campaign or losing our own warriors."

COMMENT: The point is, where do we want the casualties? Do we want to sacrifice our own troops to spare the civilians (who supposedly were given advance warning to get the hell out of Marjah until it had been secured)?

And then of course there is the very iffy Afghan National Army (ANA), that is apparently sparing itself from sustaining casualties.

If we can't depend on the Afghans to stand up to the Taliban--the same Afghans who are supposed to protect the civilians from the Islamic extremists (the civilians are also Moslems) when we pull out--then what in blazes are we accomplishing?

(a rhetorical question)

LW

See Fighting a War With Our Hands Tied--Once Again!

and Marines Under Fire Ahead of Assault
Continuation of the foregoing post: Fighting a War With Our Hands Tied--Once Again!