Michael Yon’s latest:
Daily dramas unfolded, including the bangs, booms and small-arms fire that punctuated the times. At 1800, I was preparing to go to orders with 1 Platoon, A Company of 2 Rifles, when shots from a large-caliber rifle began cracking low over base. I passed by sniper, Kris Griffith, and said, “Hey Kris, why don’t you grab your rifle and go shoot that guy?” Kris replied that two other sniper teams were on it. “He’s close,” I said, and Kris answered, “About 600 meters.” Then we went our separate ways….
Underscores this:
The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency’s spiritual home.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the commander offered a preview of the strategic assessment he is to deliver to Washington later this month, saying the troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation. The coming redeployments are the clearest manifestation to date of Gen. McChrystal’s strategy for Afghanistan, which puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants…
I believe that what is meant by “upper hand” here is that the Taliban have gained the initiative and we are reacting to them rather than forcing them to fight on our chosen ground. This is still bad, but no one should think that such reports mean the Taliban are winning – winning in the sense of endangering our troops with destruction or withdrawal. Michael Yon makes the assertion in the first linked article that the Taliban are “undisciplined savages” and are thus our best allies in defeating them – the worse they get, the better we appear in contrast. Of course, this only works as much as Joe Average Afghani believes we can protect him from the “undisciplined savages”. If the locals think that we’re going to leave them high and dry, they’ll kowtow to the Taliban as much as is necessary to survive.
Yon also notes that a lot of the problem we’re having is from bombs made from gasoline and fertilizer – which means that while weapons may be coming in from Pakistan and Iran, the mere securing of the Afghan border won’t stop the fighting. In light of all this, I believe that General McChrystal has the right strategy – protect the Afghans from the Taliban. This will not only deny a support system for the Taliban but also force them to attack us where we’ve prepared the field of battle – they’ll be forced to walk right in to the killing grounds we’ll set up for them.
This will be a long, difficult and, at times, very bloody fight. But we’ll win…as long as our political leadership supports the troops.
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