Winning hearts and minds with shock and awe

U.S. marines walk at Camp Dwyer in Helmand Province July 2, 2009. Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed deep into Taliban territory in an Afghan river valley on Thursday, launching the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

HELMAND, Afghanistan — For an operation that is supposed to be more about winning hearts and minds than defeating an enemy, there was an awful lot of combat hardware.

Operation Khanjar began shortly after midnight on Thursday in Helmand Province, with 4,000 U.S. marines, 650 Afghan soldiers, 50 aircraft and dozens of tanks. According to officials it is the largest U.S. offensive since Fallujah, in Iraq in 2004, and the first major test of a new policy announced last week by the recently appointed U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The bellicose name (Khanjar means "dagger" in Pashto) conceals a kinder, gentler military offensive. Operation Dagger Thrust (its full anglicized name) is — according to the official line — supposed to convince the war-weary people of Helmand that the foreigners are here to stay. It is supposed to show that they will assist the Afghan government in driving out the insurgents and bringing peace and prosperity, thereby allowing local residents to forswear poppy cultivation and turn away from the Taliban.

“What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commanding general of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, in a press release issued Thursday.

It’s not going to be easy. No sooner had the tanks begun to roll out of Camp Leatherneck, in western Helmand Province, than the target population began to grumble. After more than seven years of a tug-of-war between the insurgents and the foreign armies, Helmand’s population is in no mood to be patient.

“There are more than 60 tanks in our village,” said Sher Agha, a resident of Nawa district. “Instead of moving along the roads, they are in our fields. They have destroyed our farmland, and smashed everything. They are just like wild boars.”

Nawa, immediately to the south of the capital Lashkar Gah, has been largely under Taliban control for most of the past year, and is a major focus of Operation Khanjar. Residents are nervous about the possible consequences.

“The foreign troops have invaded our villages,” said Abdullah Jan Abedi, a resident of Nawa. “They are acting very aggressively on the streets — we have not seen so many foreign soldiers here before.”

But many Helmandis, chafing under the Taliban yoke, are welcoming the foreign military — with the proviso that they stay the course.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/090702/marines-offensive