U.S. Information War: The Fiction of Marja, Afghanistan, As A City:

[amborin]

Fiction of Marja as City Was US Information War

by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centers in Helmand.

During a medevac mission, a Black Hawk medical helicopter with the 82nd Airborne's Task Force Pegasus flies low and fast over Marjah to pick up a wounded U.S. Marine, as seen through the cockpit window of the security helicopter, or 'chase bird,' trailing behind, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Saturday March 6, 2010.
(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers' homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.

"It's not urban at all," an official of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who asked not to be identified, admitted to IPS Sunday. He called Marja a "rural community".

"It's a collection of village farms, with typical family compounds," said the official, adding that the homes are reasonably prosperous by Afghan standards.

Richard B. Scott, who worked in Marja as an adviser on irrigation for the U.S. Agency for International Development as recently as 2005, agrees that Marja has nothing that could be mistaken as being urban. It is an "agricultural district" with a "scattered series of farmers' markets," Scott told IPS in a telephone interview.

The ISAF official said the only population numbering tens of thousands associated with Marja is spread across many villages and almost 200 square kilometers, or about 125 square miles.


snip

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/08-4

[Echo In Light]

1. k/r

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The whole sorry FUBAR in Afghanistan is about PR.

It was about PR when Bush was going "to smoke 'em out" and it's about PR now with Obama wanting to look "tough" by caving to the Pentagon.

[DCBob]

2. The reason Marja is so important is because it's a major center for poppy farming..

and main source of funds for the Taliban.