My fellow Marines continue to lead the way down in Helmand:
Before a battalion of U.S. Marines swooped into this dusty farming community along the Helmand River in early July, almost every stall in the bazaar had been padlocked, as had the school and the health clinic. Thousands of residents had fled. Government officials and municipal services were nonexistent. Taliban fighters swaggered about with impunity, setting up checkpoints and seeding the roads with bombs.
In the three months since the Marines arrived, the school has reopened, the district governor is on the job and the market is bustling. The insurgents have demonstrated far less resistance than U.S. commanders expected. Many of the residents who left are returning home, their possessions piled onto rickety trailers, and the Marines deem the central part of the town so secure that they routinely walk around without body armor and helmets.
“Nawa has returned from the dead,” said the district administrator, Mohammed Khan.
It hasn’t been easy, not at all, but from the point of view of COIN operations, this is straightforward. Emplace yourself among the population, secure the population, gain the trust of the population; then, you can begin the rebuilding. The displaced enemy will have to fight you to retake the ground, and will have work uphill against their own evil and improvident ways. Then you transition and move on.
Nonmilitary reconstruction efforts have also begun to gather momentum. The battalion’s two civilian advisers are working with a team of U.S.-funded contractors to provide agricultural assistance to farmers, the Obama administration’s top priority for Afghan reconstruction. The contractors plan to hand out shovels, gloves and even tractors over the next few months. They hope the goods will increase prosperity and jobs and reduce the number of disaffected young men who want to fight for the Taliban.
“Everyone makes promises to us — the Americans, our government, even the Taliban,” said Mohammed Ekhlas, a snowy-bearded elder of the Noorzai tribe. “If the Marines and the people in our government are true to their words, then there will be peace in Nawa. If not, there will be fighting again.”
Note, please, that this is in the heart of Pashtunistan, the Taliban’s front and back yards. The loss of one town and the inability to take it back is a significant set-back for them, and a victory for us. Our men on the ground are obviously willing to stick it out. Are we?
