Marines in Afghan's 'Little America'

Christian Science Monitor:

The area where US Marines just launched one of their biggest operations in recent years was once known as "little America." During much of the cold war era, American expertise and money poured into Helmand Province, raising up towns from the desert through a massive irrigation project.

Nearly 4,000 marines, along with hundreds of Afghan forces, pushed deeper into the southern districts of Nawa and Garmsir after launching their strike yesterday from Camp Leatherneck, a newly built base in central Helmand.

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As the marines move south down the Helmand River, they are probably passing through towns that would not exist but for the American water-works assistance, says Richard Scott, an agricultural expert who has worked on the project over decades. Yet the US-backed Afghan government has lost control of these parts of Helmand to Taliban insurgents, and the US is now trying to win them back.

Indeed, the cold war rivalry with the Soviet Union touched off an American undertaking in Helmand that's been compared in scope with the Tennessee Valley Authority. And it could reemerge in American consciousness through the new military mission's emphasis on hearts and minds.

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Writer Ambrose Bierce once quipped that "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Helmand is Afghanistan's largest province, and lies west of Kandahar and north of Pakistan in the country's south. The Helmand River Valley runs across much of the length of the province, from the hill-country of the north down to the flat and dry deserts of the south.

Larger cities and settlements lie in the north. Mr. Scott describes central Helmand – where the offensive began – as "a tennis court with gravel spread on it."

The journey south moves into progressively hotter and drier regions, places that top 100 degrees Fahrenheit by May and see only a few inches of rain a year.

Irrigation efforts have spread farming beyond the floodplain of the river, giving rise to the desert towns that the marines are moving through.

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The American government spent $72 million on the project between 1957 and 1979, and earlier helped financed another $39.5 million through Export-Import Bank loans. The Afghan government chipped in an additional $25 million.

The irrigation project irrigated tens of thousands of hectares in Nawa and Garmsir, as well as several other central districts. As an extra enticement to settlers – many of them nomadic peoples – US contractors helped build schools systems and even constructed the current capital of Lashkar Gah in a desert region of ancient ruins.

"It was a huge influx of people who came in there for the land settlement," says Scott, who worked on the project for USAID in the 1970s. "It was really a thing to get free land [and] an educational system right there in the villages."

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This is some history I was not aware of before. I suspect that there are few living Afghans who remember our efforts in the late 50s onward. While the Marines will work on improvements to the area, I doubt they will be working on anything as ambitious as the water projects, but getting rid of the Taliban infestation is a worthy goal.