The Last Marines Leave
Sangin Valley
The Afghan forces talk about 'winning,' but
they lack basic equipment.
By
Bret Stephens
Sangin Valley, Afghanistan
For days I have been
putting the same question to soldiers of the Afghan National Army: How do you
feel about the imminent departure of Coalition forces? The answers are always
variations on this one: "We are happy and sad," they say. "The
Americans are our friends and partners. They helped us tremendously. We are sad
to see them go. But we are happy that they can go back to their families. And
we are happy that we can now defend our own country and defeat the enemy."
It's a heartening
reply, accompanied by assurances that they have the military situation well in
hand. They had better. The fighting season begins in a few days, once the poppy
harvest is brought in. Few places in Afghanistan have seen as much bloodshed as
this fertile belt running along the banks of the Helmand River. The British,
who lost more than 100 of their troops here, found it impossible to control.
The U.S. Marines took over in 2010, losing another 50 men.
The Marines won the
fight. But now they are gone for good. Late Sunday night, I watched them depart
from Forward Operating Base Nolay, the last of what were once 30 bases in the
valley. As a final order of business they picked up the trash, turned over the
garbage cans, and drove away, a long convoy of heavily armored vehicles slowly
making their way to Camp Leatherneck in the desert, 60 miles away.
So are the Afghans
ready?
The Marines who have
been training and advising them for the past year are cautiously optimistic.
The Afghans have been conducting security operations on their own for a year
while the Marines have mostly stuck to their bases. They have shown initiative,
adaptability, discipline, coordination and a fighting spirit. "At a time
when nobody's talking about winning," one Marine officer tells me,
"they are talking about winning."
The best evidence was
the peaceful April 5 national election, in which Afghan soldiers and police
were able to maintain security—and ballot-box integrity—at more than 6,000
polling places. Nobody expected the Afghans to perform so well. In Sangin
alone, some 5,000 people, or 58% of the electorate, turned out to vote; in the
2009 election, just 179 people did.
Nobody expected,
either, that the Taliban would be unable to disrupt the vote. "The tables
are turned now," says Maj. Gen. Sayed Malouk, the top Afghan commander in
Helmand province. "The enemy used to do the attacking. Now we are the ones
attacking them."
Whether the Afghans
can sustain the momentum is another question. A few Afghan officers are willing
to share their doubts. "Do you have the equipment and support you need to
win the war?" I ask one mid-ranking officer.
"No sir," he
says. "These weapons we have are old. Once they've been broken we don't
have spare parts."
Could his unit count
on the central government in Kabul to make up the shortfalls?
"Unfortunately
I'm not sure," he admits. "In the past they've proven they can't
help. We should have air support, a good radar-control system, MRAPs"—the
last of these being the heavily armored, IED-resistant vehicles that are to the
Afghan Army's Humvees roughly what a Humvee is to a Dodge Dart.
As evidence of what he
means, the wreckage of a smashed Afghan Humvee sits in the yard of the base,
the victim of the improvised explosive devices that are the Taliban's weapon of
choice. "We hope that when Coalition forces leave here we will end up with
better vehicles," says another senior Afghan officer. He all but implores
me to make sure the point gets conveyed to the American public.
The officer isn't
likely to get his wish, nor is it clear that he should: An army that lacks the
logistical ability to keep its Humvees on the road is unlikely to succeed with
MRAPs. Afghanistan's military "will continue to evolve to where it is
'Afghan sustainable,' " says Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo, the senior Coalition
officer in the region. Every military wants better equipment. What the Afghans
need, as opposed to what they want, is the ability to take good care of what
they have.
For that they still
need help. The NATO mission wraps up in December, and the size of the remaining
U.S. force is up in the air. "Right now 10 to 12,000 [U.S. troops] is what
we're looking at," says Brig. Gen. Yoo, adding that the larger the
American force, the fewer the overall risks. The Obama administration is
rumored to be contemplating a force of 5,000—too small to make a difference,
large enough to make trouble. It's the same mistake the president made in Iraq.
It's fashionable to
write off Afghanistan as another lost war. Anyone who spends time in Sangin
today would know it isn't. But whether our withdrawal from the Sangin Valley is
remembered as a transition or a retreat depends on whether Mr. Obama wants to
win a war he has spent his presidency fighting, or merely declare victory and
go home.
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