The fighting is still going on, even as the coverage wanes and we are told how successful everything went.
And a familiar site I see!
MARJAH, Afghanistan – Afghan officials raised the national flag over Marjah on Thursday, asserting government control even as Marines searched for militant holdouts. Kabul also confirmed the arrest of another top Taliban leader — part of a roundup that could further strain the insurgent movement.
About 700 men in turbans and traditional caps gathered in a central market for the flag-raising ceremony, during which Abdul Zahir Aryan was installed as the top Afghan official in this town of 80,000 in Helmand province.
You mean The New Mayor of Marjah?
Also see: New leader for key Afghan region may have criminal history
We installed a criminal exile as mayor?
Actually, when you look at AmeriKan politics (they just aren't exiles, that's all; maybe they should be)....
The provincial governor told the crowd that authorities were eager to listen to requests from the townspeople and provide them with basic services that they didn't have under the Taliban.
Yeah, and they don't have them now after our operation.
And he is not the mayor, huh? That's a different guy.
Taliban fighters still control about 25 percent of the 80-square-mile area in and around the town nearly two weeks after U.S. and Afghan forces launched their attack to seize Marjah, a major Taliban logistics and supply center and the largest community in the south under insurgent control.
Marines and Afghan soldiers slogged through bomb-laden fields of northern Marjah on Thursday in search of an estimated 100 Taliban and foreign fighter holdouts — the last significant pocket of insurgents left in the town....
Yeah, it is like 150-to-1 now on the combat ratios yet these guys are still "holding out?"
SOMEONE is LYING, readers, and I THINK WE KNOW WHO IT IS!
Despite the insurgent holdouts, enough of the town has been secured for NATO and Afghan authorities to begin the most difficult part of the mission — restoring local government and rushing in public services to win the confidence of the population to dry up support for a Taliban return.
Umm, DESTROYING SUCH THINGS and MURDERING FAMILY and VILLAGE MEMBERS probably killed any chances at that.
"When an area has been liberated and cleared, then we provide governance immediately, we provide development assistance, we provide the local community with a better livelihood," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at an alliance meeting in Spain. "The current operation in Helmand province will serve as a role model for further operations."
Which means there are GOING to be MORE of these MASS SLAUGHTERS!
Related: AmeriKa's Afghan Offensive Has Begun
AmeriKa's Afghan Offensive Has Begun
AmeriKa Letting the Missiles Fly in Marjah
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NATO troops have taken over Marjah before, only to withdraw and leave the town under the control of corrupt and ineffectual administrators who alienated the townspeople and enabled the Taliban to come back.
Such a misrepresentation it makes me mad.
As they told the mayor, they LIKE TALIBAN THERE because THEY ARE TALIBAN!
International officials are keenly aware of the challenges, including the possibility that old-style regional powerbrokers could interfere, using their political clout to install inept cronies in the local administration and divert funds earmarked for the town.
Yeah, but DON'T WORRY, if they are OUR WARLORDS that will be okay!
"There is the influence they will seek to have over appointments, and we have to accept the political realities. These guys have some influence," said Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan.
I read this stuff after all my screeds and it is so galling.
Why have we killed so many people in the name of a lie then?
Aryan is an outsider from the town of Musa Qala in northern Helmand who has spent much of the past decade in Germany.
So it IS the SAME GUY with a DIFFERENT NAME? WTF, readers? NO WONDER Americans can never tell the "terrorists" with a CIA scorecard (save fOr the big guy Buried in a hilLside somewhere, GET IT?).
So WHAT GIVES, MSM? Can we get some CLARIFICATION?
Western diplomats say they hope this will be an asset because he doesn't have ties to warlords. But it could also mean he doesn't have the local allies needed to stand up to regional power brokers.
This is why our policies fail, America. IMPOSING this IMPOSTOR from the OUTSIDE while preaching democracy?
The former governor of Helmand province said that bringing in an outsider will alienate local elders and drive them back toward the Taliban.
"The people will become frustrated and lose their hope and they will start to go toward the other option, which is the Taliban," Sher Mohammed Akhunzada said.
You know, their NEIGHBORS DEFENDING THEM from Amerikan asault!
Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal is trying to prevent this by bringing influential Marjah leaders together into an oversight committee to help make decisions that affect the town.
The first priority is a road linking Marjah to the nearby provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, said Frank Ruggiero, the top U.S. civilian representative for southern Afghanistan.
I would like to know WHY this has TAKEN SO LONG!
Yeah, the PLANS for the OIL PIPELINES came FIRST, huh?
In addition, more than 2,000 area residents have signed up for day-laborer jobs aimed at getting money in their pockets quickly.
Not that I want Afghans to suffer; however, any American reading that HAS to be FURIOUS when we have LOST over 8.4 MILLION JOBS -- and TAX LOOT is SENT to Afghanistan to REBUILD what WE DESTROYED over a LIE by paying OVERCHARGING WAR PROFITEERS to "rebuild."
Seed is ready for distribution at the end of the month to jump-start agriculture in an area that has long depended on the opium-poppy crop.
Oh, yeah, the other reason we "needed" to invade: Protect drug profits for the banks.
NATO says the number of residents returning to Marjah is increasing and shops in the more secure areas have opened, selling telephones and computers along with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Oh, yeah, it is ALMOST as if the MISSILES NEVER CAME DOWN or a battle was fought at all, huh?
Just a lot of dead people lying around, but those kinds of things happen when you are helping people.
Tips from residents about hidden bombs are up 50 percent, NATO said in a statement — a sign they're willing to cooperate with international and government forces.
I LOVE PSY-OP STATEMENTS, don't you?
At least 13 NATO troops and three Afghan soldiers have been killed during the offensive, according to military officials. Eighty NATO troops have been wounded, along with eight Afghans.
At least 28 civilians have been killed, including 13 children, according to the Afghan human rights commission.
Need I even type the the word afterthought?
MARJA, Afghanistan - The black, red, and green flag of Afghanistan was hoisted over the center of this onetime Taliban stronghold yesterday, as Afghan officials symbolically claimed control after a major American-led military offensive.
While this city has emerged from the worst of the fighting, there were reports of scattered battles to the north of Marja, and American and Afghan troops continued to pursue Taliban militants.
So the battle isn't actually over yet.
The militaries now face formidable challenges in securing the city enough for the government to begin to provide the services that it hopes will win people’s loyalty.
How can you do that after flattening homes and killing people?
If you did it to my house I'd hate you no matter who you are or whatever you claimed as a reason.
Residents who fled began to return, and some markets reopened yesterday. But there is little food because the major road into Marja is still mined....
Yeah, NO REASON a NEWSPAPER READERS should know that, huh?
With Afghan soldiers, tribal elders, and residents of Marja looking on at the flag raising, the governor of Helmand Province, which includes Marja, and a top Afghan Army officer promised to restore security and stability to the city and to transform it from a bastion of the Taliban into a “symbol of peace.’’
Written in Muslim blood! This kind of stuff really makes one want to puke.
The officer, General Sher Muhammad Zazai, the Afghan Army’s top commander in the Marja campaign, said the operation’s military goals were “almost achieved....’’
I've been hearing that record for so long in so many places -- and it always turns out to be a damn lie.
American military officials have described the battle for Marja as part of a larger campaign, political as much as military, to weaken the Taliban.
No one said that when they advocated this "surge."
The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, who attended the ceremony, said that troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force would remain in the area until security was restored and that they would not allow Marja to fall again to the Taliban....
They need to get control of it first.
Afghan officials also expressed their condolences over the civilians who were killed or wounded in the offensive, which began Feb. 12 and was the largest military campaign since the invasion in 2001. But Mangal said it was a “great achievement’’ that so few civilians had been killed....
I really can't respond to that sort of nonsense without swearing.
Un-fucking-real!!!!!!!!!!!!
As residents watched the flag raising some expressed mixed feelings about the change of power. They said that the Taliban had provided order and security and that the Afghan Army now needed to prove that it could open schools, clear mines and explosives from the roads and fields, and keep the population safe.
Juma Gul, 20, said his family had remained in the city even after his grandfather was shot and killed in front of his home.
“The operation was painful and full of miseries for our family,’’ Gul said, adding that he wanted to see the troops leave as soon as possible. “For us, they are not useful.’’
But WE HAD TO GO IN ANYWAY!!
Yeah, a MASS-MURDERING WAR CRIME is what MARJAH IS!!!!!!!!
NATO said two service members died in southern Afghanistan - one on Wednesday when an improvised explosive device blew up, and the other yesterday from small-arms fire. NATO said neither service member died as part of the Marja campaign.
Meanwhile yesterday, two policemen were killed and another was wounded in suicide attacks in Kabul.
Abdul Ghafor Sayedzada, a top investigator for the Kabul police, said a series of explosions occurred this morning near Kabul City Center, a nine-story shopping area. Sayed Kabir Amiry, the director of the hospitals in Kabul, said that about five other people were wounded in the attack.So many things my printed report left out.
--more--"
Covered the next day?
Nope.
So how come this piece doesn't get the shuffle?
MARJA, Afghanistan - Marines and Afghan troops cleared the last major pocket of resistance in the former Taliban-ruled town of Marja yesterday - part of an offensive that is the run-up to a larger showdown this year in the most strategic part of Afghanistan’s dangerous south.
Let the REBUILDI.... what's that, ANOTHER OFFENSIVE and MORE WAR coming after this?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!
Although Marines say their work in Marja isn’t done, Afghans are bracing for a bigger, more comprehensive assault in neighboring Kandahar Province, the birthplace of the Taliban where officials are talking to aid organizations about how to handle up to 10,000 people who could be displaced by fighting.
Probably a lot more because that is how these things work; however, HOW MANY WILL DIE, dammit, MSM?!!!!
“I was in Kabul, and we were talking that Kandahar will be next, but we don’t know when,’’ said Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar. He’s begun working with international aid groups to make sure the next group of displaced Afghans have tents, water containers, medicine, food, blankets, lamps, and stoves.
F*** you, Obomber!
“Hopefully things will go smoothly, that people have learned lessons from the Marja operation,’’ he said.
Yup, as if it is ALL OVER and ON to the NEXT SLAUGHTER!!!
Shortages of food and medicine have been reported during the two-week-old Marja operation. The international Red Cross took dozens of sick and injured civilians to clinics outside the area. The UN says more than 3,700 families, or an estimated 22,000 people, from Marja and surrounding areas have registered in Helmand’s capital of Lashkar Gah 20 miles away.
Yeah, but they are just SICK and ILL REFUGEES who have HAD THEIR LIVES UPENDED and their VILLAGE DESTROYED!
Who cares if they are starving or suffering when the operation was such a success.
Walid Akbar, a spokesman for the Afghan Red Crescent Society, said government aid was mostly received by those who made it to Lashkar Gah, Akbar said. Those stuck outside the city are getting little help, he said....
Probably used to it from what I've read about Taliban (except for the order and security that this operation has smashed).
The operation in Marja is the tactical prelude to the bigger operation being planned for later in Kandahar, the largest city in the south and the former Taliban headquarters, according to senior officials with the Obama administration.
It was from in and around Kandahar that Taliban overlord Mullah Omar ruled Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Yeah, so, what does one have to do with the other?
I have STOPPED BELIEVING the LIE, MSM!
"The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997."
Huh?
Notice the MSM never tells you that?
Bringing security to Kandahar city is a chief goal of NATO operations this year, according to the officials, who spoke to reporters in Washington on Friday on condition of anonymity so they could discuss national security issues.
If this year’s goal is to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and give Afghan government an opportunity to take control, then NATO-led forces have to get to Kandahar this year, one official said.
And all these years we were told we were winning.
Yesterday, after a four-day march, Marines and Afghan troops who fought through the center of Marja linked up with a US Army Stryker battalion on the northern outskirts of the former Taliban stronghold.
“Basically, you can say that Marja has been cleared,’’ said Captain Joshua Winfrey, commander of Lima Company, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines Regiment.
Of people and standing structures.
Lima Company’s more than 100 heavily armed Marines, along with nearly as many Afghan army soldiers, spent days advancing north, searching every compound for possible Taliban holdouts.
There were no Taliban in sight, and the Marines didn’t fire a shot during the final advance - except at a couple of Afghan guard dogs who threatened the unit.
The Marines’ hookup with the Army battalion means the operation is somewhere between the clear and hold phases, although suspected Taliban fighters remain on the western outskirts of town.
The guy just said it's been cleared, sigh.
Captain Abe Sipe, a Marine spokesman, said that while resistance has “fallen off pretty dramatically’’ in the past four to five days, the combined forces expect to face intermittent attacks for at least two more weeks.
“We are not calling anything completely secure yet,’’ Sipe said.Have you had enough with the LIES yet, America?
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Yeah, going to be LONGER than TWO WEEKS, too!
"Marines to remain in Marja for months" by Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated Press | March 1, 2010
MARJA, Afghanistan - More than 2,000 US Marines and about 1,000 Afghan troops who stormed the Taliban town of Marja as part of a major NATO offensive against a resurgent Taliban will stay several months to ensure insurgents do not return, Marine commanders said yesterday.
Just ENLARGING the OCCUPATION, readers.
Meanwhile, insurgents are striking back by attacking resupply convoys moving in and out of Marja with roadside bombs, Marines said. Four convoys have been hit in the last two days, Marines said on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information. There was no word on casualties.
Gee, THAT sure has been DOWNPLAYED by the Amerikan MSM during this success story.
Two Marine battalions and their Afghan counterparts will be stationed in Marja and help patrol it as part of NATO’s “clear, hold, build’’ strategy, which calls for troops to secure the area, restore a civilian Afghan administration, and bring in aid and public services to win the support of the population, commanders said.
The 1,000 Marines with the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines Regiment were fortifying positions to the north and west of the town yesterday, taking over compounds and building others from scratch to create a small garrison as well as combat outposts and a network of temporary patrol bases, said.
Related:
"The elders.... complained that foreign troops had taken over schools and other facilities to use as bases."
Of course, no problem because we are not "terrorists."
Captain Joshua Winfrey. Another battalion was doing the same to the south of Marja, Winfrey said. About 1,000 Afghan troops will accompany the Marines, he added. In addition, about 900 Afghan paramilitary police are already patrolling Marja.
Nothing about those MASS-MURDERING MISSILE STRIKES anymore, huh?
Yeah, out of sight out of mind, huh?
Captain Abe Sipe, a Marine spokesman, said a more permanent military outpost will facilitate a long-term NATO presence in the town.
Yeah, ONCE WE GET THERE we NEVER LEAVE!
Marja residents had told government officials that they preferred NATO troops to be based in the town, instead of being outside, to provide better security.
Yeah, sure they did -- even as they want them to leave as quickly as possible.
Winfrey said he has been told that the entire battalion expects to be stationed in Marja until the end of its deployment in August.
When they will be replaced by another set of soldiers.
--more--"
So Marjah turned out to be a BASE for the LARGER Kandahar operation, huh?
Yeah, it wasn't about "CLEARING" a town at all!
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Six NATO service members died yesterday in separate attacks across Afghanistan, including a suicide car bomb that targeted an international military convey as it crossed a bridge in the Taliban-dominated South, the coalition said.
Nine Afghan civilians also died in four bombings in the South, officials said.
The deaths came as American and Afghan forces worked to consolidate control over the former insurgent stronghold of Marja in the southern province of Helmand, where allied forces are waging the largest combined offensive of the eight-year-old war....
Kandahar is the capital of the province of the same name that is considered the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. It lies east of Helmand province, where thousands of US, NATO, and Afghan troops are conducting an offensive to wrest control of the town of Marja from insurgents.
We have been told they already did, sigh.
Marja has long been controlled by the Taliban, and the assault is seen as the first step in a multimonth offensive that will eventually target insurgent strongholds around Kandahar city.
I don't recall this "surge" being SOLD TO YOU THAT WAY, AmeriKa!!
Advances by US and Afghan forces in and around Marja have been hampered by thousands of buried explosives left behind by the Taliban. A civilian car hit one of the roadside bombs yesterday as it entered the city limits of Lashkar Gah, the major town north of Marja.
The blast killed three people, including a 10-year-old boy, said Dawod Ahmedi, spokesman for the Helmand provincial governor.
Another roadside bomb killed two employees of a construction company who were riding in a company vehicle on a road north of Lashkar Gah district, an Interior Ministry statement said.
The two-week-old Marja offensive, involving thousands of American troops along with Afghan soldiers, is the largest combined assault since the 2001 US-led invasion to oust the Taliban’s hard-line Islamist regime.
The allied forces have cleared most of Marja and are working to secure the area, though NATO has warned there could be pockets of violence for weeks.Which means they HAVE NOT CLEARED ANYTHING they have just OCCUPIED the PLACE!
Mission accomplished!!
--more--"
"Outgoing UN envoy issues warning on Afghanistan; Stresses need for political solution to ending conflict" by Abdul Waheed Wafa, New York Times | March 5, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Thousands of troops from the United States, Britain, and Afghanistan began work to restore civilian services after finishing the huge combat phase of the effort to retake a Taliban stronghold at Marja in southern Helmand Province....
That's all the effort got for print?
So how is that rebuilding going?
"Taliban, rival militants battle; Afghan groups clash in north; around 50 dead" by Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post | March 8, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai made an official visit to the former Taliban stronghold of Marja, in Helmand province, which has been the scene of a major offensive by American and Afghan troops.
Karzai, accompanied by General Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, spoke to about 300 tribal and village elders in a mosque and asked for their support to prevent a Taliban return to the area. Karzai has been criticized for remaining isolated in Kabul and not venturing out into the countryside, particularly in volatile areas.
“Are you with me or against me?’’ Karzai asked in Marja, prompting the elders to raise their hands in the air and shout, “We are with you!’’ and “We are supporting you!’’ according to pool reporters at the scene.
PFFFFFFT!!! Well, if I have to make a choice.... (agin 'em)
Despite the pledges of support, however, the elders peppered Karzai with questions and complaints about the ongoing military operation.
STILL ONGOING?
Some were upset that some civilians, who they said were not connected to the Taliban, were being detained by US forces.
Tortured, too?
Others complained that foreign troops had taken over schools and other facilities to use as bases.
Where do you expect us to rebuild from?
The elders also claimed that Afghan troops looted their shops during the battle to retake the town, and they repeated a common Afghan complaint about high levels of corruption in the Afghan government....
Oh, I'm sure that type of behavior will win them right over and keep Taliban away.
I mean, look at what we have sent them:
"UMass team helping to teach Afghanistan’s teachers" by James F. Smith, Globe Staff | March 11, 2010
In war-torn Afghanistan, university master’s degrees are so rare that graduation caps, gowns, and diploma covers are hard to come by.
But with help from educators from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a ceremony in Kabul yesterday celebrated 41 students who earned advanced degrees in education....
Hey, that's great -- while your tuition is raised, classes cut, and staff laid off at home, students.
Yeah, turns out universities serve globalist interests, not yours.
Professor David R. Evans, who leads the UMass team that designed the post-graduate Afghan program, said staff members from UMass helped fashion the graduation garb and diplomas....
Missiles sent into houses are also an education, readers.
Twenty-two of the graduates recently completed the new two-year program at Kabul Education University, the first master’s degrees in education in Afghanistan at least since the Taliban takeover in the 1990s. The other 19 completed their degree work recently at UMass Amherst and Indiana University, and joined their counterparts from Kabul for the event.
The Kabul master’s program is one element in a wide-ranging Afghan initiative by UMass Amherst education specialists, who have been bolstering teacher education in the country since 2003. Evans, who has spent more than 40 years at the Center for International Education at UMass Amherst, said the graduates range in age from their 20s to over 40, and that 10 of the 22 graduates from the first class of the Kabul Education University are women. They completed their coursework in Dari, an Afghan language, in December, and all are teaching at 16 schools of education around the country, along with the recent graduates from the US universities.
In this way, the American-backed master’s in education program will help seed schools of education around the country with trained faculty, who in turn will share their expertise with hundreds of teachers. Education has always been seen as a pillar of rebuilding Afghanistan, and Taliban rebels have frequently targeted teachers and schools, especially those for girls.
Yeah, WE JUST OCCUPY THEM!
The UMass team has worked with colleagues from Indiana University over the past five years to design and implement the master’s program at the country’s flagship school of education, thanks to a five-year, $7.4 million grant from the US Agency for International Development to develop teacher-training staff and institutions.
Yeah, somehow war works, huh?
The Kabul program employs three Americans and six Afghans, including Wahid Omar, an Afghan-American who has coordinated the master’s program.
Evans and his UMass colleagues, including Joseph Berger, who is chairman of the department of education policy, research, and administration, have also been involved in several other education initiatives in Afghanistan, including a new project to improve medical education.
Maybe BLOWING LIMBS OFF THEM is not the best thing to do then, huh?
Yesterday’s event drew much attention in Kabul, Evans said, with the US ambassador and the Afghan minister for higher education attending.
Oh, that must be why it even made the paper.
Evans said he and Berger have traveled to Afghanistan about a dozen times since 2003. The five-year contract with USAID ends in January 2011, he said, but he hopes to continue to contribute to improving teacher education in Afghanistan in the future.
The initiative reaches beyond Kabul, with professional development centers running in eight other cities, including Kandahar, Herat, and Kunduz.
That going to interfere with the next offensive?
