They lied again, Americans.
"Taliban haven’t given up on winning back Marja
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-- Your friends at Boston.com "WTF?
Oh, I see.
The HEADLINE NEEDED to be CHANGED to something much more INFLAMMATORY!!
"Taliban fight in Afghan town with fear campaign" by Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer | March 17, 2010
MARJAH, Afghanistan --A month after losing control of their southern base in Marjah, the Taliban have begun to fight back, launching a campaign of assassination and intimidation to frighten people from supporting the U.S. and its Afghan allies.
After the MSM told us they lost it you mean.
At least one alleged government sympathizer has been beheaded. There are rumors that others have been killed. Marjah residents awake to letters posted on their doors warning against helping the troops.
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So who is leaving notes on doors?
Winning public support in the former Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, 360 miles southwest of Kabul, is considered essential to preventing insurgents from returning. U.S., Afghan and NATO troops captured the town in a three-week assault that began Feb. 13.
The Marjah operation will serve as a model for campaigns elsewhere, including one expected by summer to secure villages around Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and the largest city in the south.
And here the administration and MSM sold you on a one-time surge that would have us home by next year.
Once again, YOUSE GOT TOOK, 'murka!
And there is that "spiritual birthplace" thing.
Of course, the economic birthplace was friend Saudi Arabia, but that gets conveniently forgotten, too.
Military commanders believe the Taliban campaign is achieving some success because of questions raised at town meetings: Do the U.S. forces want to shut down the mosques and ban prayer? Will they use lookout posts on their bases to ogle women? Are they going to take farmers' land away?
"Dislocating the insurgents physically was easy. Dislocating them socially -- proving that we're here to stay and to help -- is a lot harder," said Lt. Col. Jeff Rule, the head of operations for Marines in Helmand.
Translation: They are still in the town and have not gone away, sigh.
See: Marines Take Marjah
You were lied to by the MSM again, Americans, just as they continue to lie to you every day.
We aren't EVER COMING HOME or LEAVING, America. I just wanted you to know that.
There are no firm figures on how many Taliban are left in Marjah.
Yeah, we WERE OUTNUMBERING THEM 15-to-1 before victory.
I think you are starting to see the picture pretty clearly now, huh?
Marine and Afghan military officials say they believe most of those still here are from the area and that the foreign fighters have fled.
So they ACTUALLY LIVE THERE, huh?
Yeah, we are KILLING PEOPLE who SIMPLY LIVE THERE and want us GONE!
Regardless of Taliban numbers, their influence is still felt.
Pfft!
Yup, I'm sick of the shit-shoveling.
New cell phone towers brought phone service to Marjah a little over a week ago. But the service doesn't work at night because the Taliban threaten or bribe tower operators to shut off the network, presumably to prevent people from alerting troops and police as they plant bombs after dark.
What about those drones prowling the sky with their night vision?
Some of the workers on canal-clearing projects have been threatened or beaten by insurgents.
At least one canal worker who received threats returned and said he will keep working despite the risk, said Maj. David Fennell, who oversees about 15 civil affairs troops working to win over the population.
"That's when you know that you fought the Taliban and you won," Fennell said. "I tell my team time and time again: 'What did we just do today? We hit the Taliban in the mouth.'"
And they are still standing.
Hit 'em again, right?
This is the struggle for Marjah now: winning people over with a job or a vaccination for a child.
So WHEN is the AmeriKan government going to try and WIN YOU OVER, Americans?
And NO VACCINATIONS, please!!!! That ain't going to do it, either!
The victories are small because the Taliban already proved it can make good on its promises by enforcing harsh justice while in power.
Whatever, MSM.
"My sense is that the Taliban will reinfiltrate in due course as the Afghan government fails to live up to the modest expectations NATO has of it," says Mervyn Patterson, a former U.N. political affairs expert in Afghanistan.
That is where the printed paper cut it.
What timing, huh?
"I do not think that the Taliban have been weakened in Helmand by the loss of Marjah. They have been having ups and downs, and this was a modest down, but not something that is significant, in and of itself. I expect they will gradually return to Marjah."
They never left because they live there.
Related: U.N. Says Taliban Not Terrorists
Is that why he got the cut?
Many of the estimated 80,000 people in Marjah share the same fears, even though there are about 4,000 NATO and Afghan troops in and around the town, including two Marine battalions....
The Marines are trying to win partly through diplomacy and partly through getting development and infrastructure projects running as quickly as possible to show that the Afghan government is serious this time.
Well, WTF you been DOING for the LAST EIGHT YEARS?
FOOLING AROUND, huh?
While all these DEAD BODIES PILED UP, huh?
U.S. troops are having some success in efforts to win over influential mullahs by offering to make repairs or install loudspeakers in mosques -- work they hope would not be targeted by the Taliban. This may overestimate the restraint of the militants....
Yeah, right. Pious Muslims are going to destroy the mosque.
Notice that never happens until WE GET THERE, America?
Even so, projects of all types push ahead. Three medical clinics are open, staffed by doctors from Kabul and locals who ran private clinics under the Taliban, Fennell said. Two interim schools have started, staffed by locals and with more than 100 students.
Yup, as YOURS are CLOSED and CUT your TAX MONEY goes to REBUILD that which YOUR TAX MONEY DESTROYED, Americans.
The canal-cleaning project has grown from 40 workers to about 800, Fennell said. But it took weeks of cajoling -- taking first the teenagers who showed up, then eventually recruiting a few men of military age, then turning the older men into contractors in charge of getting fighting-age men to clean whole sections of the canal.
Marjah's administrative chief, Abdul Zahir, said he and his advisers believe they must show the upper hand in town by the end of the month....
Oh, he is not being called mayor anymore?
Maybe you should call him puppet.
But he acknowledged the task is difficult. Homemade bombs still appear every night on roads traveled by the military. Gunfire can be heard many evenings in the center of town. Earlier this week, a Marine foot patrol hit a bomb planted near the district center, seriously wounding several of them....
But we took it.
The Marines refuse to give precise time frames, saying they'll be here as long as they're needed. But commanders and Afghan officials acknowledge that they only have a short time to win over the population....
Gul Sahed said his neighborhood is still not safe. There is fighting nearly every day, and the Taliban threaten to beat people who leave their homes at night. He considered not coming to the district center because the Taliban might see him. But he decided that he needed the money, and took the risk.
Yeah, what interest would any newspaper reader or web surfer have there -- if they could find it on the sight (I had to do a search).
Somehow, you webbers never got to see that on the Glob's website version.
Instead you got this PoS from the chief American MSM s***ter.
"Taliban step up intimidation; Strike against civilians with fear campaign" by Rod Nordland, New York Times | March 18, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have begun waging a campaign of intimidation in Marja that some Afghan leaders worry has jeopardized the success of a US-led offensive there meant as an early test of a revised military approach in Afghanistan....
Of course, if a MSM newspaper lies and it leads to invasion, that's not intimidation.
The U.S. NEVER INTIMIDATES ANYONE, does it?
Though Marja has an occupation force numbering more than one coalition soldier or police officer for every eight residents, Taliban agitators have waged an underground campaign of subversion, which residents say has intensified in the past two weeks.
“After dark the city is like the kingdom of the Taliban,’’ said a tribal elder living in Marja, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear. “The government and international forces cannot defend anyone even 1 kilometer from their bases.’’
But it only took three weeks to take!
The new governor of Marja, Haji Abdul Zahir, said the militants are holding meetings in randomly selected homes about every other night, gathering residents together and demanding that they turn over the names of anyone cooperating with the authorities.
He's a mayor, he's an administrative head, he's a governor. It's almost as if the MSM doesn't really want you to know who this guy is.
Zahir said the Taliban also regularly issued “night letters,’’ posted at mosques or on utility poles, warning against such collaboration, and often intimidated residents into providing them with shelter and food, even in densely populated neighborhoods of the city, which is home to 80,000.
“They are threatening and intimidating these people who are cooperating,’’ he said in a telephone interview. “They have been involved in the area for a long time and they know how to intimidate people. They threaten them with beheadings, cutting off hands and feet, all the things they did when they were the government.’’
More than 6,000 US soldiers, Marines, and British soldiers fought their way into Marja beginning Feb. 13, along with thousands of Afghan troops and police officers. Many others have reinforced the occupation since to protect an influx of Afghan officials and Western specialists to build an effective government in Marja. That effort to win over the local populace is at the heart of the US and Afghan government strategy, and NATO officials have said it is proceeding well.
Yup.
Familiar with that expression in one ear out the other, MSM?
I mean, I have heard it SO MANY TIMES BEFORE and then things GET WORSE!
Journalists have not been allowed to visit Marja independently, however; they must be embedded with the US military. Marja is meant to be a template for a similar campaign aimed for spring in neighboring Kandahar Province, the Taliban’s heartland.
NATO and Marine Corps spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the situation in Marja....
--more--"