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Today's
Stories
July 7, 2009
Uri Avnery
Israeli Court Rebukes Military
July 6, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Hussein's FBI Interviews
Diana Johnstone
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Coup to Venezuelan Coup: Same Old Globalizers and Torture School Grads
Gary Leupp
Operation Khanjar Begins
Jonathan Cook
Israel Calls on Ultra-Orthodox Jews to Stop "Arab Takeover"
Tim Wise
Of Fireworks and False Memories
Franklin Lamb
Cynthia McKinney and the Kidnapping of the Spirit of Humanity
Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin, Plain and Tall
Carlos Benemann
California's Bingo Bondage: Getting Paid in IOUs
Shepherd Bliss
The Soulless Machine: Caught in the Cellphone Snare
Jerry Kroth
Stuart Levey and World War III
Karyn Strickler
A Fell-Swoop Moment Missed
Website of the Day
The Rise in Military-Backed Public Schools
July 3-5, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Gob Smacked
Eamonn Fingleton
Detroit's Collapse: the Untold Story
Jeffrey St. Clair
Is the Bald Eagle Really Back?
Mike Whitney
Running on Empty
Pam Martens
The Parable of Michael Jackson's Debts
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Counter-Revolution Will Not be Tweeted
Paul Craig Roberts
The Big Whorehouse on the Potomac
Patrick Cockburn
The Haggling Over Iraqi Oil
Anthony DiMaggio
A Perilous Path: Iraq and the Language of De-Escalation
Roger Burbach
Honduran Coup: Target Left?
John Ross
Left's Grip on Mexico City Slips
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet Jim Demint: Coup Apologist
Gareth Porter
The Iran Canard
Andy Worthington
Finally, a Trial Date in the African Embassy Bombings Case
Saul Landau
Bad Times, Worse Habits
David Macaray
How We Spend Our Money
Adam Federman
The Recovery That Wasn't
Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care
Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney
Robert Jensen
Beyond Independence
Robert Bryce
Hey, Paul Krugman, Here are 2.4 Billion More Climate Traitors
Belén Fernandez
The Situation in Honduras
Missy Comley Beattie
Would Jesus Pack Heat?
C. G. Estabrook
La Cina e Vicina
Stephen Martin
The Fog of Economic War
Charles R. Larson
Adichie on Her Own
Lorenzo Wolff
A Voice Like a Newsreel: the Soul of James Carr and the Civil Rights Movement
Kim Nicolini
The System That Hijacked New York
Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Kazak and Stadler
Website of the Weekend
Paul Krassner v. Larry King
July 2, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
The Wall Street White House
Nikolas Kozloff
Spinning the Honduran Coup
Wendell Potter
Obama's False Friends of Health Care Reform
Ellen Hodgson Brown
California's Empty Wallet
Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent?
Patrick Irelan
Lost in Patagonia
Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq
Nicola Nasser
Ethnic Cleansing as State Policy
Brian Tokar
Climate Bill:
Cap(italize) and Trade(Off)
Dan Bacher
Panama Canal North?
Website of the Day
Scheuer on Immigration: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States."
July 1, 2009
Vijay Prashad
Iran and Us
Alberto Vallente Thorensen
Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal
Paul Craig Roberts
Pirates of the Mediterranean
Robert Weissman
150 Years
Manuel García, Jr.
The New Crisis in Aviation
Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete
Honduras, a Coup With No Future
Norman Solomon
The NYT and Troop Deaths:
Abstract Quality Journalism
Franklin Lamb
Remembering Amnon Kapeliouk
Martha Rosenberg
When Doctors Boo
Diane Rejman
Mothers and Military Lies
Website of the Day
The Color of the Race Problem is White
June 30, 2009
Michael Hudson
Debt Deflation Arrives
Esam Al-Amin
Iran and Washington's Hidden Hand
Benjamin Dangl
Showdown in Honduras
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Doctors Collude in Torture
Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah After the Elections
George Wuerthner
Beetle Hysteria ... Again: the Truth About Bugs, Fires and Ecosystems
Todd Gordon
Acceptable Versus Unacceptable Repression
Ron Jacobs
Mark Sanford, Sexual Liberation and LGBT Equality
Kenneth Libby
Conditions for Citizenship
Julian Vigo
Feeling Michael Jackson
Website of the Day
Inside the Mega-Churches
June 29, 2009
Ishmael Reed
The Persecution of Michael Jackson
Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup in Honduras: Obama's Real Message to Latin America?
Clifton Ross
Coups and Constitutions: From Bolivia to Honduras
Patrick Cockburn
Why Iraq is Now the Most Corrupt Country on the Planet
Uri Avnery
Between Tel Aviv and Tehran
Conn Hallinan
Dealing With North Korea: Why Threats and Sanctions Will Backfire
James G. Abourezk
Where the Money Isn't Going
Ralph Nader
The Holes in Obama's Financial Regulation Plan
Carol Miller
Why Fiscal Conservatives Should Love Medicare-for-All
Greg Moses
Jobs First
Website of the Day
Key Leaders of Honduran Coup Trained in the US
June 26-28, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard
Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet the Retreads: Obama's Used Green Team
Doug Peacock
Elk River: History and the Yellowstone
Daniel Wolff
The Night Before:
a Glimpse of the Lenape
Mike Whitney
What the Big Banks Have Won
John Ross
The New York Times and Stolen Elections
David Rosen
Cry, Hypocrite, Cry: the Tradition of Sex Scandals and American Politicians
Emily Ratner
Thoughts on Manhood From the Rafah Tunnel
Gareth Porter
Airstrike Report Belies "Blame Taliban" Line
Farid Marjai
Green, But Not Velvet
Nadia Hijab
The Rift in Iran: Memo to the "Do Something" Brigade
Paul Craig Roberts
Gun Control: What's the Agenda?
Fred Gardner
FDR's Real Defining Moment: Ending Prohibition
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Father's Day
Paul Watson
Fear and Loathing in Madeira
David Ker Thomson
Nothing
Farzana Versey
The Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson as Tramp
Geoff Berne
Obama and Charter Schools: The Showdown at Schottenstein
Todd Alan Price
Ohio: Birthplace of Charter Education ... and Opposition to It
Ramzy Baroud
People for Sale in a Hungry World
Jeff Sher
Health Care Showdown
Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All
Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value?
Glen Johnson
The Village and the Wall
Charlotte Laws
Hold the MSG!
Charles R. Larson
Dickens in Morocco, Sort Of
Kim Nicolini
The Erasure of Art
David Yearsley
Yankee Prof Takes on Dallas
Lorenzo Wolff
When the Songs Remain the Same
Poets' Basement
Larson, Davies, McLellan and Gardner
Website of the Weekend
Kayakers vs. Shell Oil
June 25, 2009
Kathy Kelly
Now We See You, Now We Don't
Jack Bratich
You Provide the Tweets, We'll Provide the Info War: the Media and the Iranian Protests
Wendell Potter
The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform: a Former Insurance Industry Insider Tells All
Charles R. Larson
Don't Cry for Him, Argentina! GOP Sex Scandal of the Week
Alan Farago
The Tears of Mark Sanford
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Firms Accused of Profiting Off Holocaust
Gareth Porter
Khobar Bombings:
Telltale Signs of Saudi Fraud
Bitta Mostofi /
Bill Quigley
"You Will Not Get Past Us"
David Macaray
Six Ways to Reinvigorate Labor
Mark Schuller
Haiti's Elections: "Beat the Dog Too Hard"
Website of the Day
Worst Slide Story
June 24, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One
Dean Baker
Making Financial Regulation Work
Andy Worthington
The Story of Abdul Rahim al-Ginco
James Bovard
Obama and the Torturers
Diana Gibson /
Ray McGovern
Torture Eats the Soul
P. Sainath
The Age of the Everyday Billionaire
Gareth Porter
Investigating the Khobar Tower Bombing: Why Was Al Qaeda Excluded From the Suspects List?
Robert Alvarez
The Department of Energy's Nuclear Albatross
Dave Lindorff
Medicare for All
Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi
Website of the Day
Protest as Terrorism
June 23, 2009
David Price
Obama's Classroom Spies
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reels Toward a New Era
James Ridgeway /
Jean Casella
Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care: Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry
Dave Lindorff
Using the Economic Crisis to Attack Workers
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Puerto Rico: Biotech Island
Gary Leupp
Dennis Ross Moves to the White House
Brian M. Downing
The Erosion of the Mullahs' Monolith
Robert Bryce
Are Theocracies Doomed?
Nicholas Dearden
The G8 is Dead
Yousef Munayyer
Seeing Through Israeli Delay Tactics
Website of the Day
The Great White Father of America
June 22, 2009
Michael Hudson
Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street
Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election? A Hard Look at the Numbers
Chris Floyd
Dexter's Legions in Afghanistan
Jack Z. Bratich
The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Networks and Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations
Atash Yaghmaian
We Children of the Revolution
Laura Carlsen
Victory in the Amazon
Paul Craig Roberts
The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran
Vijay Prashad
Gun v. Butter: Now You are Only Poor
Fred Gardner
Charles Lynch Gets a Year and a Day (No Thanks to Eric Holder)
Andy Thayer
The Blank Check: How We Got the Obama-DOMA Debacle
David Macaray
Unions and the Newspaper Crisis
Website of the Day
The Most Spied Upon Town in America?
June 19 - 21, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
I Become an American
Jeffrey St. Clair
Firebrand: Rod Coronado's Flame War
Patrick Cockburn
Who Will Control Iraq's Oil?
Al Giordano
What the Left Should be Learning From Iran
Henry A. Giroux
The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media
Anthony DiMaggio
The Electoral Façade
Paul Craig Roberts
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"
John Ross
46 Dead Mexican Toddlers: Sacrificed on the Altar of Neoliberalism
Gareth Porter
Spinning Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Bix Fix: Placating the Bankers, Again
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
40 Years After Stonewall:
From Smash the Church to Going to the Chapel
Joe Bageant
Workers' Rights: No Balls, No Gains
Serge Halimi
Protectionism: We've Been Here Before
P. Sainath
Price of Rice, Price of Power in India
Jim Goodman
The Claim Deniers: Why the Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust
Dave Lindorff
Obama's Health Care Waterloo
Rannie Amiri
Bush Jumps Over Maine, Carter Lands in Gaza
Robert Fantina
Iran, Obama and McCain
Harvey Wasserman
Big Nuke's Radioactive Hoax in Impoverished Ohio
Walter Brasch
They Got Away With Murder: 12 Angry White People
David Ker Thomson
This Moment's Bill of Rights
Charles R. Larson
No Voice: Telling Her Mother's Story
David Yearsley
Escape From the Torture Chamber
Kim Nicolini
When the Closet is the Culprit
Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini and the Art of Ambiguity
Poets' Basement
Beatty and Kowitt
Website of the Weekend
Grown in Yellowstone, Slaughtered in Montana
June 18, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Case of Netanyahu and the Curious Incident
Robert Sandels /
Nelson P. Valdes
U.S. Cuba Policy: a Case of Post-Diplomatic Strees Disorder
Anthony DiMaggio
The Iranian Elections and the Faith-Based Media
Robert Weissman
Obama's Financial Sector Reform Plan: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Joshua Frank
These Are Obama's Wars Now
Jonathan Cook
Canadian Ambassador Honored in Illegal Park Built on Razed Palestinian Homes
Reza Fiyouzat
Iranians in the Streets
Norman Solomon
Obama and the Antiwar Democrats
Ali Jawad
Reformists are Islamists, Too
James Ridgeway
Am I on Crack When It Comes to Flight 447?
Website of the Day
The Death of the Ghost Prisoner
June 17, 2009
Carl Boggs
Torture: an American Legacy
Dr. Bryant Welch
Torture, Psychology and Sen. Daniel Inouye: the True Story Behind Psychology's Role in Torture?
Winslow T. Wheeler
How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense
Liaquat Ali Khan
Obama's Gift to Pakistan: a Civil War
Jonathan Cook
Beating and Torturing Children
Binoy Kampmark
Gordon Brown's War Inquiry
Karim Makdisi
The Lebanese Elections: a Box Office Success?
Dave Lindorff
Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black
David Swanson
In Congress: 32 Heroes, 21 Frauds
Gene Marx
How Fox News is Helping to Nationalize the GI Sanctuary Movement
Website of the Day
The Diamond Mine That Ate Mirny
June 16, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Looming Peril: a Plague of Snakes
John Ross
Undermining Mexico
Afshin Rattansi
Guarding the Revolution
Marc Levy
How I Nearly Won the War
Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Youth Make History
Brian M. Downing
Democracy in Iran
Merle Lefkoff
Israel's Angels in America
David Macaray
Charles Manson and Me
Robert Jensen
Finding a Stubborn Hope to Live in a Dead Culture
David Swanson
An Exit Strategy That Keeps Wars Going
Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament Fundraiser
June 15, 2009
Michael Hudson
The Ending of America's Financial-Military Empire
Reza Fiyouzat
The Iranian Elections: Sure They Stole It...Up Front and Honestly
Patrick Cockburn
A Whole New Ballgame in Iraq
James Ridgeway
Did Composite Parts Bring Down Air France Flight 447?
Marjorie Cohn
Agent Orange Continues to Poison Vietnam
Rannie Amiri
Iran and the End of the "Obama Effect" Myth
Dave Lindorff
How Obama is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Elections and the Hysterical Media
Leonard Schwartz
The Angel of History and the Ghetto of Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Start Your Engines, Drug Reps!
Website of the Day
Single-Payer v. Public Option
June 12-14, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Who Needs Yesterday's Papers?
Gareth Porter
The CIA's Drone Wars
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Parlor Trick
Mark Ames
Elmer Fudd Nation
Esam Al-Amin
What Really Happened in the Lebanese Elections?
Franklin Lamb
Carter in Lebanon
Patrick Cockburn
Prisoner Swap in Iraq
Andy Worthington
The Long Ordeal of Mohammed El-Gharani
Heather Gray
A New Perspective on the Confederacy: Southern Greed During the Civil War
Felice Pace
Why NPR Refuses to Report on the Single Payer Movement
Ron Jacobs
Flashback to the End of a War That Really Did End
George Wuerthner
Burning Questions: Why the National Fire Plan is a Trojan Horse for Logging
Jeffrey Buchanan /
Trinh Le
Biloxi Trailer Blues
David Ker Thomson
Americana
Renaud Lambert
Brazil: More Dependent Than Ever
Kevin Zeese
Congress and the Health Business Lobby
David Macaray
SAG Vote:
A Lesson in Solidarity ... Not
Evelyn Pringle
FDA Throws Lifeline to Antipsychotic Pushers
Chris Genovali
Blood Sport Auction: Why eBay Should Stop Selling Guided Hunts for Bears, Wolves and Cougar
David Michael Green
The Rhetorical President
Brian J. Foley
Our Solar System is Not a Suicide Pact!
Charles R. Larson
No Safe Return
Kim Nicolini
Foreclosure is Hell: Sam Raimi's Frightfest
David Yearsley
Bach on Torture: Mr. Cheney, They're Playing Your Song
Lorenzo Wolff
Intent to Discord
Poets' Basement
Chris Jordan
Website of the Weekend
The Red Room
June 11, 2009
Kathy Kelly /
Dan Pearson
Down and Out in Shah Mansoor: With the Swat Refugees
James Bovard
The Latest Torture Cover-Up Scam
Tristan de Bourbon
The Toy Makers of Chenghai: the Financial Crisis Seen From China
Dave Lindorff
The Wheels are Coming Off the Recovery Program
Kevin Zeese
The Case for Disbarment of the Torture Lawyers
Ralph Nader
The Craft of Sam Maloof:
a Visionary Woodworker
Harvey Wasserman
The GOP's Trillion Dollar Reactor Plan Goes Radioactive
Nicole Colson
The Anti-Abortion Movement's Climate of Violence
Mark Weisbrot
Showdown Over the IMF
Dan Bacher
Big Water's Big Lie Unravels
Website of the Day
Top 10 Most Absurd TIME Covers
June 10, 2009
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Obama's Doublespeak on Iran
Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine
The Dangerous World of Indefinite Detentions: From Vietnam to Abu Ghraib
Kathy Kelly
Visitors and Hosts in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Fear Rules
Rev. William E. Alberts
First the Torture of Truth ...
Peter Lee
Obama and North Korea: a Warm-Up in the Offing?
Carol Miller
Why
We Need a Holistic, Cradle-to-the-Grave National Health Care System
Emily Ratner
Dreams of Flight in Gaza
Robert Weissman
The IMF's Accountability Moment
Dave Lindorff
The Sutra of the Crushed Volvo
Website of the Day
Starving in Gitmo
June 9, 2009
Winslow T. Wheeler
Back From the Dead: Pentagon Pork!
Mike Whitney
Is Hyper-Inflation Around the Corner?
Stan Cox
Biofuel's Drug Problem
Sibel Edmonds
The Battle Against the State Secrets Privilege
Jonathan Cook
Where the Victim is the Guilty Party
David Macaray
A Bad Time for Unions
Robert Jensen
In South Africa, Apartheid is Dead, But White Supremacy Lingers On
Nadia Hijab
The Obama Difference
Mark Weisbrot
Vulture Funds Descend on Argentina
Website of the Day
Waging Non-Violence
June 8, 2009
John Ross
Mexico: Politics as Drugs / Drugs as Politics
Paul Wright
Deconstructing Gus: How a Former Prisoner Took On and Took Down Corrections Corporation of America's Top Lawyer (and Cheney Pal)
Paul Craig Roberts
Long-Term Economic Memory Loss
Franklin C. Spinney
"Natural Growth:" Israel's Demographic Hogwash
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon's Elections: Return to the Status Quo
Uri Avnery
The Tone and the Music
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Loyalty Oaths
Eric Toussaint
/ Damien Millet
The Partisans of Capitalism Have Lost All Credibility
Jim Goodman
The Dairy Oligarchy
Norman Solomon
Words and War
Reza Fiyouzat
When Accusations Fly: the Spectacle of the Iranian Elections
Website of the Day
Latino Jobless Rate Soars
June 5 -7, 200
Alexander Cockburn
High Words, Low Truths
George Galloway
Our Convoy to Gaza
Paul Craig Roberts
Obama in Cairo
Jennifer Loewenstein
How Much Really Separates Obama and Netanyahu?
Franklin Lamb
Watching Obama's Speech in Lebanon
Mike Whitney
The Biggest Rip Off Ever?
Andy Worthington
Death at Guantánamo
Missy Comley Beattie
Peace Be Upon You?
Farzana Versey
Walk Like an Egyptian: the Oprahfication of Obama
Stanley Heller
Obama's Non-Starter
John V. Whitbeck
Nothing Comes From Nothing
Robert Weissman
GM: the Path Not Taken
Lee Sustar
The Fall of GM: Why Workers Will Pay the Price
Dave Lindorff
What a State-Run GM Could Do
William Blum
The Great, International, Truly Demonic Iran Threat
Ernest Callenbach /
Harvey Wasserman
A Green-Powered Trip Through Ecotopia
Greg Moses
By George! Austin Leads the National Recovery
Ron Jacobs
The Meaning of Yasser Arafat
David Yearsley
Art Set in Concrete:
the Desolate Urban Landscape of High Culture
Tim Stelloh
Pot Home Invasions:
Bud and Blow Torches
Belén Fernández
The Joksters: Obama and Thomas Friedman
David Ker Thomson
The Academics
Karyn Strickler
Clean Coal: a Dirty Joke
Christopher Brauchli
Judicial Amnesia and the Federalist Society
Charles R. Larson
Leaving Tangier: Exile and Exploitation
Kim Nicolini
"Hunger:"
Art With a Punch
Lorenzo Wolff
Good Head (Or Why the End of Hand-Crafted Music Isn't (Necessarily) the End of Music)
Poets' Basement
Jenkins, Orloski and Willson
Website of the Weekend
Tankman
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July 7, 2009
The Die Has Been Cast in Afghanistan
Crossing the Helmand
By BRIAN M. DOWNING
Last week US forces launched an offensive in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. The four thousand troops involved, mostly marines, are beginning one of the largest operations of the war and the start of a new chapter in the conflict as well.
The goals are ambitious. The campaign first seeks to drive the Taliban out of villages then begin a counterinsurgency program – providing services to the local population to win them over to the government side. Officers are ordered to meet with local councils within forty-eight hours of arrival and impress upon them the US’s commitment there.
The offensive likely also seeks to disrupt the opium trade in Helmand, which provides revenue to the Taliban, and to throw the Taliban off balance so as to limit a wave of attacks aimed at disrupting elections on August 20th.
Two potential problems come to mind. First, though the scale of the operation is smaller than the big operations of the Vietnam War, it may be sufficient to cause dismay among the indigenous populace. Many are ambivalent about the Taliban but will blame US troops for bringing war to their districts, thereby bolstering support for the Taliban – the “accidental guerrilla” dynamic identified by David Kilcullen.
Second, counterinsurgency doctrine calls for beginning in “easy” districts, where insurgent support is relatively weak and government control relatively strong. From there, having benefited from a learning curve, counterinsurgency ops will spread into adjacent areas then jump into tougher areas. The present operation has ignored that tenet and chosen to begin in a Taliban stronghold.
Perhaps geography trumped doctrine in choosing Helmand to begin the counterinsurgency. It is relatively flat compared to Kandahar, Paktia, and Kunar, where mountainsides afford insurgents formidable positions to rain fire on supply lines and helicopter-borne reaction forces. Accordingly, resupply and responding to Taliban attacks in strength will be less arduous in Helmand.
Thus far, engagements have been few and brief, though recent reports indicate stiffening resistance in some places. It is unclear if the Taliban have vanished into the population or headed for defensible positions. No one can think they will write off Helmand to concentrate on Kandahar and other strong points.
The experience of other insurgencies offer several responses for the Taliban weigh. Among them will be interdiction of supplies coming to forward operating bases in the province. This can be done through ambushes and IEDs – the latter having become a tactic of choice in recent years, apparently learned from veterans of the insurgency in Iraq.
The dispersal of US units into small fire bases and checkpoints offer attractive targets for a few dozen or so Taliban fighters whose fellow guerrillas will set ambushes for relief forces. Furthermore, the Taliban might attack in numerous provinces across the country, to pressure the US to withdraw troops from Helmand and to disrupt the August elections.
Foremost in the Taliban response will be disruption of counterinsurgency efforts. Insurgents will seek to assassinate elders and others deemed to be collaborating with US forces, attack newly-formed local forces before they can coalesce into effective fighting forces, and destroy logistical centers that store equipment tagged for local development programs. And in every engagement, the Taliban will seek to ensure that US firepower causes civilian casualties.
Failing to thwart the counterinsurgency program in Helmand, the Taliban may well be saddled by desertions from the numerous part-timers who flesh out their fighting forces, and also by the threat of shifting support in the face of an agency whose resources are foreign but virtually limitless. Helmand will be a test of Pashtun amenability to counterinsurgency. Will they respond favorably to government services and participate in security forces, or has the province become too closely attached to the Taliban over the years? Should the campaign fail, the US will have to reevaluate its approach in Afghanistan, if not its very presence there. The forces are in place and the importance is clear to all. The die has been cast, in Helmand.
Brian M. Downing is the author of several works of political and military history, including The
Military Revolution and Political Change and The
Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great
War to Vietnam. He can be reached at: brianmdowning@gmail.com
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