More than 200 Muslim religious leaders, called Mullahs, came in the back gate of Camp Hansen to the Civil Military Operations Center or CMOC where they sat in a carpet floored tent drinking bottled water and eating Clif bars or oatmeal cookies.  The Mullahs were invited to listen to the Afghan National Army, influential Mullahs cooperating with the Marines and US Navy Chaplains make a case that seems more obvious to westerner than a local resident of Marja--that Afgahn Army soldiers are indeed Muslims.

"When we first came here we discovered that among the local population many believed that the ANA are not muslims at all," said Navy Lt. Commander Nathan Solomon, the Chaplain for the Marine Battalion.  "They spoke a different language, Dari, instead of Pasthoo.  They dressed differently, they lived with the Marines.  The locals never saw them going to a mosque to pray.  They never heard the call of the muzzien."

The Marja area of Helmund province is an irrigated desert.  In the 1950s and 1960s westerners worked on the Helmund River project to build damns and irrigation canals.  The vast canal network has turned the river valley into winding island of green in an ocean of rough brown dirt.  Camp Hansen itself is said to be on the same site as a compound that housed US engineers and advisors.  The local crops are wheat and opium poppies.

To the eye, the terrain resembles the fertile Euphrates river valley in Iraq, the only give away being the architecture.  In Iraq many of the houses were built with concrete and rebar.  In Marja brown mud-brick is still the primary construction material, the mud-brick houses are almost all surrounded by a mud-brick wall..

In his book "Afghanistan" Louis Dupree, the foremost expert on Aghanistan in his time and any, wrote that the mud wall was as much a metaphorical and psychological barrier as a physical barrier that is common to most all third world areas.  To those in power, the Mullahs, the heads of families, the land owning Khans and local strongmen, change represents a threat to current order and their power.  Humans the world over are resistant to change if for no other reason than we are comfortable with the status quo because we understand it.

As Dupree describes it, Westerners when first making contact with a village will not be allowed to talk to the true leader of the clan or family. 

"I do not think that man is in charge," Vadim said as a squad of Marines from Golf Company walked back to their combat outpost after a talking to a group of men who had finished evening prayers at a mosque.

One of the purposes of the patrol was to gauge support for and spread the word about a school being opened in an area of Marja called Trek Nawa.

"The best time to meet with the men is here, right after prayers," said 1st Lieutenant Geoffrey Smith.

In the fading sunlight, the Marines talked with the local men until they brought forth a little man with a long gray beard who could have been between 60 and 90 years old.

Dupree writes that often an old man, a former Malik or gray beard will be offered up.  Only after multiple contacts will a Westerner from the military or a aide group meet the real authority in the village.

Through an Afghan interpreter, Lt. Smith told the old man about the school and asked if his family would send their children.

"We will send them if the children of every other village go," the old man said.

The conversation went on like that for 10 minutes.

"It is like that with the Arbaki and just about everything else," Smith said.  Arbaki are local village defense militias organized and trained by the Marines.  "No one wants to be the first.  No one here wants to stand alone."

It could also be that the Marines of Golf Company were not talking to a man of any real authority.  They can hope though that the men of that village group will give the message to the real leader but often they do not.

In Vadim's time here, the Soviets rarely went to speak to an Afghan family or tribal leader unilaterally.  If there was a meeting between Soviet officers and a tribal leader, it was set up by the Afghan Army, or the KhAD, Afghanistan's intelligence service.

"It is very difficult to know who is really in charge," Vadim said.

One of the local tribal leaders in Golf Company's area is Hadji Qatar.  He was one of the first to do the handshake with the Marines.  He stood up a the first group of Arbaki, local defense forces to provide protection for a market.  He also provides old fashioned racketeering style protection and loan sharking.  He will loan a shopkeeper enough money to buy some initial inventory with little regard for the Islamic ban on usury and charge "rent" on top of that.

Recently the Marines granted contract to somone outside Qatar's network and the Arkbaki commander Toor Jan pressured him for a cut of the action until the Marines stepped in, reminding him who the strongest tribe really is.

The Marines would prefer to work with more savory characters, but in Afghanistan you have to deal with who you can.

The most difficult mission for the Marines will be to overcome the mud wall, the quick meetings with men after evening prayers, the Mullah Shura--getting the Mullahs to understand that the Afghan Army soldiers are Muslims and Afghans-- and every conversation is a step in chipping away the wall.

"The situation is totally different," Vadim said.  "The Afghan Government, maybe the Afghan army would hold a Shura like this.  Maybe there would be Soviet political officers or development technicians, but in my experience regular officers would not take part in Shuras."

Twenty-five years ago when Vadim served here the Afghan government, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), was much stronger than the current Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIROA) headed by Karzai.  By the late 1980's, when he served in Helmund province, the DRA and Afghan Army was in charge, with the Soviet military in a supporting role and a purely military role at that.

The current operating model of US counter insurgency is for the military to engage in multiple lines of operation from combat operations to seek out, locate and engage the Taliban, to funding development projects like schools and irrigation improvements.

NATO and the Marines are using a different system than the Soviets used.  Ten years in to the struggle here, the question is whether the ultimate outcome will be any different.

"The system...has...changed,"  Vadim said, referring to the Government of Afghanistan and the US military..  "Not, Afghanistan.  Afghanistan, never changes."

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1st Lt. Geoffrey Smith and members of the Female Engagement Team.

Members of the Marine Female Engagement Team discuss schooling for girls in Trek Nawa.

Lt. Col. Vadim Fersovich, a retired Soviet Spetznas/GRU officer talks about the Taliban era with some residents.  His Pashto is rusty, but bettter than most Marines

Your humble correspondent in his "office" editing a report for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Opium poppies, which will play a large role in my next report.

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