Troops continue to press in area around Kandahar

Washington Post:

U.S. and Afghan troops flowed into rural areas west of this city in the past week in a new push that NATO commanders said would clear out Taliban fighters and allow Afghan security forces to take control of the spaces left behind.

The major thrust into the farming districts of Zhari and Panjwayi represented an escalation in the military's slow-moving operation to secure the surrounding province, Kandahar, and other parts of the Afghan south.

Top U.S. officers in Afghanistan expressed confidence in the potential of the Kandahar offensive and the gains already made. But even as more soldiers head to the front lines, worry persists inside the White House and the Pentagon about whether the effort to expel the Taliban will be enough to bring stability to a nation where poor governance and rampant corruption are seen as the primary drivers of chaos.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said in recent days that the current approach is paying dividends.

The competing assessments are likely to play into a White House review in December of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Officials in the White House and the Pentagon said it is unlikely the review will lead to major shifts in the approach, which is seen as progressing as expected.

But in a sign of the concern, senior White House officials have begun asking for more data about the war.

"There has been a real sense in the last month that U.S. policy has been somewhat dysfunctional," said a senior defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There is a lively debate among the military guys about whether we are moving in the right direction."

In an interview, the top U.S. military official in southern Afghanistan said the operation, with about 20,000 coalition forces now in place, has already boosted security in Kandahar city and government influence in some areas outside it. The Kandahar effort has unfolded gradually, following a rapid offensive into neighboring Helmand province that military officials have said was not well thought out.

"We are going to continue what we've been doing, what has been a very deliberate application of the principles" of counterinsurgency strategy, said Brig. Gen. Frederick "Ben" Hodges, the deputy coalition commander in southern Afghanistan. "We have started changing that map."

A "security ring" of checkpoints and walls around Kandahar has led to increased commerce and movement, he said, and the continuing arrival of U.S. military police is helping build the capability of Afghan police. In the Argandhab Valley, a key entry point into Kandahar city, summer clearing operations and an increase in security forces helped Afghan officials take control of about 85 percent of the territory, up from about 50 percent, Hodges said.

But it is unclear whether military achievements in the south and elsewhere are being outpaced by the gains of the Taliban, whose leader recently declared that his movement was winning. The number of assassinations in the city of Kandahar rose in August, Hodges said, although he could not cite a figure. Insurgents have begun to spread throughout northern areas where their presence was previously marginal. Nationwide, militant attacks have doubled since last summer.

...
It is amazing to me that administration officials are looking for more data on the surge before the troops have finished deploying.That an enemy leader makes a statement that he is winning from a hiding place in another country is not much of a basis for concern. If he were making that statement from Kandahar, then we might have something to worry about.

The fact is the Taliban are short of troops and have been bringing in al Qaeda and Pakistan militants to bolster their ranks as well as young kids. Those are not the acts of a winning side.

The reason the Taliban are making attacks elsewhere in the country is they are trying to distract from the fact they are getting their butts kicked around Kandahar. Attacking unarmed non combatants does not take much, but they are attacks of little military significance.

Because Obama limited the number of troops that would be added in Afghanistan, we do not have the force to space needed to protect everyone, everywhere. We do have the ability to deny the Taliban space they want and that is what we are doing.

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