Apr
18
2010
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Closing out the Korengal |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Sunday, 18 April 2010 |
Jules has a good review of the '2K' phenomenon , the obsession with the closing of the distant outposts in the Korengal and the build up around Khandahar.
If you ever get the pleasure of closely examining a tribal map of Afghanistan's Eastern mountains, you will see blotches denoting the primary Pashtun tribes and other blotches marked, Pashai.
Pashai, in the hard Pashtun dialect of Eastern Afghanistan means "hill billy."
If the Pashtuns are calling you a hill billy, you are probably too far gone to ever be brought into the fold.
Many of the distant outposts recently closed out were in Pashai territory and it was pretty common knowledge on the ground as early as August of 2009 that those Company sized outposts were going to be closed out.
Does closing them out give a free hand to the enemy in those distant mountain valleys? Yes.
But in Iraq the Coalition handed to open desert over to AQI. Given the open border between the distant valleys and the Pakistan Tribal areas that the Taliban already have as safe havens, the net effect will likely be marginal.
The allocation of force we are now seeing in Afghanistan is similar to the British tactics in the Malayan Civil War. Regular infantry worked the population centers with standard population centric counter insurgency. The SAS went deep into the jungles.
The Battle of Khandahar will not look like the Battle of Fallujah. It probably will not even resemble the slow moving block-by-block battle of Ramadi of 2006-2007.
It will most likely be a lot like Baghdad in the late Summer of 2007--US Forces out walking the streets 24/7 conducting census missions and precision raids as the opportunities presented themselves.
For those fretting about how long it is taking us to move on Khandahar, they would be wise to recall that the Surge was no real mystery. The Counter Insurgency Field Manual, the game plan of the surge, was published online by the Army. In Counter Insurgency you can tell your enemy exactly what the macro strategy will be.
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