NATO to Expect Local 'Political Leaders' to Direct Next Assault on Kandahar - “This is not Fallujah"

[bigtree]

March 31. 2010

NATO officials: Next Afghan campaign to focus on politics

KABUL — After a smoother-than-expected military operation to take the southern Afghan town of Marjah from the Taliban, the U.S. military is aiming to quash Taliban resistance in the Islamist group’s spiritual home of Kandahar by the fall, two senior NATO officials said Tuesday.

They added, however, that success in Afghanistan’s second-largest city would depend more on evolving political negotiations than on a decisive military campaign like the one that ousted Sunni Muslim militants from the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

“This is not Fallujah. This is not Baghdad,” one senior NATO official said. “There is not going to be house-to-house clearing.”

Instead, military officials are looking to minimize urban fighting by encouraging political leaders to lead the way.

“The solution to Kandahar will not be done through security,” said the other NATO official, who’s a senior U.S. military official in Kabul. “It will be enhanced through security. But the change, the real dramatic change for Kandahar, will have to happen politically.”



( . . . not very likely NATO will be able to emphasize their 'political' aims over the destructive and destabilizing impact among residents of Kandahar from the devastating, U.S.-led military offensive.)

[NJmaverick]

1. This is certainly a new approach to dealing with an insurgency

one that has the potential to succeed where pure military solutions have failed.

[bigtree]

4. I think it's just another pipe dream

. . . worse, just propaganda ahead of their pre-determined military advance.

[pinboy3niner]

2. From what I understand, the U.S. military offensive isn't designed

to devastate Kandahar. The plan is to encircle the city with a perimeter manned by U.S. troops, and let Afghan troops enter and secure the area. Part of the objective is to minimize any "destructive and destabilizing impact."

[bigtree]

3. I think the destructive and destabilizing impact is a matter of degree

... and interpretation. It sure sounds like Baghdad, even as you describe it. We'll see how it's interpreted by the locals and weigh that result against this rhetoric about enlisting local leaders in the military advance on their homeland and the imposition on them of the vestiges and political constructions of the U.S.-enabled Karzai regime.

[howard112211]

5. We are backing an illegitimate government in Afghanistan.

[bigtree]

6. and imposing it on the Afghan population, especially in regions which were not engaged in elections

... through the force of our weapons; outside the limits that our constitution proscribes for the use of our military defenses.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Vietnamization redux. Followed by "Peace with Honor"....and a monument to the cannon fodder.

[gratuitous]

8. Not Fallujah? Did something bad happen there?

Not to hear the military tell it. Not a thing wrong with the Fallujah mission. Medals all around, boys! And I'm sure that operations in Kandahar will be just as pristine, as the invading, occupying forces order and direct locals to kill their fellow citizens and blow up their neighbors' houses. So much smoother that way. And two months, or two years, or (hell, these people are still fighting battles with each other that began in the 13th century) two decades from now, nobody will hold a grudge against the quislings who played the catspaw for the imperialists. Unless they're a bunch of terrorist ingrates, that is.