the battle for Marjeh

All good Americans recognize this image:

All Marines recognize the name Fallujah just as well as Iwo Jima. Four Blackwater contractors were hanged from a bridge in that town in Iraq. The Marines moved in, were halted for political reasons, and then finished the job there.

Iwo and Fallujah have a special meaning for Marines. Soon, a place called Marjeh will join Iwo and Fallujah in that special meaning. A USA Stryker brigade has linked-up with the Marines to seal-off the last escape route. Marjeh, Helmand Province, Afghanistan has been surrounded.

Jacob Meinert of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin and Jamie Lowe of Johnsonville, Illinois died on January 10^th and January 11^th. Jacob and Jamie were Marines, Lance Corporal and Corporal, 20 and 21 years old. Jacob and Jamie were killed by Taliban from Marjeh.

Marjeh is the size of Rockford. It will be a fight, even though the outcome is already known. The strategy of counter-insurgency requires that we guard against collateral damage and quickly establish civil authority. Once Marjeh is pacified we will present it to the Afghan government and leave.

Thursday:

Presently, USA Special Forces are carrying-out “kinetic missions” (assassinations) by infiltration. When the time comes they will attack from the south with Afghan commandos. Most of the weight will be carried by Marines, however. At the newly-built Belleau Wood outpost just outside of town, five Breachers are ready. These 72-ton vehicles will clear a path through the minefields that circle the town.

A primary road runs from the north end of Marjeh to the Helmand River. A canal that carried river water to the fields splits into two where it crosses the road. Secondary roads parallel those three canal segments. That intersection is called “Five Points”.

Company C of the 1/3 (1^st Battalion of the 3^rd Regiment) was landed by helicopter near Five Points. Company B of the 1/3 marched from the big Marine Base, five miles away, clearing IEDs as they came and then reinforcing Company C. So two companies of the 1/3 were tasked with kicking open the door to Marjeh.

Company B is Jacob Meinert’s company.

Before we gift-wrap Marjeh (again) and turn it over, there will be more Marines who will join Jacob and Jamie, and there will be many more Marines who will be wounded. Indeed, another Marine from Jacob’s company fell two weeks ago. Company B paused to make a fine tribute to Timothy Poole. But the Marines will charge into Marjeh anyway.

They will take Marjeh because McChrystal and Obama have ordered them in. They will take Marjeh because thousands of Americans have died at the hands of Islamists. They will take Marjeh because the forces of Civilization demand it.

And because Jacob and Jamie died for a good cause; one that their fellow Marines will honor.

Friday, February 12, 2010 (Saturday in Afghanistan): It has begun.

Specifically, we have finished with Shaping Operations and begin Clearing Operations. Stars and Stripes confidently reports that in a few days, “the basic mechanisms of government are to be in place. An Afghan administrator for the town has already been named. U.S. civilian agencies are ready to open offices.”

But before we can start a 4-H club we must finish this fight. Talibantaxi has his thumb on the pulse of the battle.

Sunday, March 13, 1960, New York Times:

Fifty years ago, we struggled to bring life to the desert in southern Afghanistan. Throughout the Cold War, the Free World engaged the Soviet Union there. Charlie Wilson’s War was the last battle of the Cold War. The Helmand water project of the ‘50s was the first battle of the Cold War.

Wednesday, February 17: Pray for Tom and Sean.

Captain Tom Grace commands Bravo Company of the 1^st Battalion of the 3^rd Marine Regiment. Sean Greenleaf is Bravo Company’s First Sergeant. Their company has lost three brave warriors in the last month.

On January 10^th, Jacob Meinert died. I attended his funeral and in connection with that, I had the honor and pleasure of exchanging email with Captain Grace and 1stSgt Greenleaf. Then, on January 20^th, Timothy Poole died the same way Jacob died: A roadside bomb while on foot patrol.

In Marjeh yesterday, Noah Pier died from a roadside bomb while on foot patrol. (The bomb also inflicted severe shrapnel wounds to the face of another Bravo 1/3 Marine.) Jacob, Timothy and Noah served together in Bravo Company.

An infantry company consists of about a hundred Marines. Think of a marching band during football halftime. Ten ranks and ten files – one hundred musicians. Now think of a lightning bolt that strikes down one musician while the 99 others keep marching and playing their instruments. Then a second falls and 98 continue marching. Now a third has fallen, but 97 drive on.

Tom and Sean must carry that triple burden as they drive on. Most of us live in a world where the death of another from such a small group stops everything. The world where Tom and Sean and the rest of Bravo Company work has suffered serially but does not stop for anything.

And we told them we were coming. Usually, military tactics seek to exploit surprise. The “attack” on Marjeh, however, was preceded by many indications that we were coming. On the eve of our attack, we even dropped leaflets that addressed the Taliban leaders by name and told them we were coming for them. So they started setting booby-traps for us.

We didn’t go into Marjeh to engage the Taliban fighters. We went into Marjeh to engage the civilian population. If our PsyOps shock & awe caused the Islamists to run away, that meant less risk to the Marines and – importantly – less risk to the civilian population. Shortly before our move, the Marine commander for southern Afghanistan Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said, “The population is not the enemy. The population is the prize.”

This is the face of counter-insurgency (COIN) and it is the reason that IEDs are so prevalent in Marjeh. COIN is not intended to win the war on Islamist terror. It is more narrowly focused and is intended to get us out of Afghanistan by creating an environment that is hostile to the Islamists but friendly to us. And the population we must win is Muslim, which makes it challenging.

If we focused our lethal military on the enemy and disregarded the civilian population, then Jacob, Timothy and Noah would probably be alive today. But that would not be COIN.

In the last 17 years, our military has protected Muslim populations from tyranny in Somalia, Bosnia, Kuwait and Iraq. We will do it again in Afghanistan. Captain Tom Grace, 1^st Sergeant Sean Greenleaf and the Marines of Bravo Company are doing it right now at great risk to themselves.

Drive on, Bravo.

Friday, February 19:

An embedded Los Angeles Times correspondent writes:

The three men were blindfolded, their hands bound in front of them with plastic flex cuffs, and each was in the firm grip of a Marine. Their loose-fitting clothes were faded and dusty, their thick beards beginning to show gray.

They had been spotted outside the town of Marja in southern Afghanistan carrying a shovel near a spot where a roadside bomb had been planted. They had a suspiciously large amount of cash, and two of them had tested positive for explosive material on their hands.

So the Marines brought them to this outpost of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. From here, the men will be taken to battalion headquarters.

…

Within hours of the three being arrested, a tribal elder had come forward to vouch for them.

"It happens all the time. You detain someone, and suddenly an elder says he can find 25 guys who will say the guy was with them and is innocent," said Lt. Col. Matt Baker, commander of the 1st Battalion.

It's a tricky proposition: The Marines want to stop the proliferation of roadside bombs, but they also are currying favor with tribal elders, hoping to win their support against the Taliban.

The rules for detainees reflect the goals of the counterinsurgency campaign: Better to let a small-fry Taliban loose rather than risk alienating an influential mullah or tribal elder.

Baker ordered the three detainees released, but only after elders signed an agreement taking responsibility for the men's conduct.

"We told them: Any more trouble and we come after them, no second chances," he said.

"We'll see."

Saturday, February 20:

Bravo is part of the 1/3. The “3” is the 3^rd Regiment of Marines, which is based in Hawaii, where they have a volcano. The 1^st Battalion of the 3^rd is the “Lava Dogs”. The Lava Dogs are commanded by Matt Baker. The embed writes again today from Nawa, where Jacob Meinert was killed:

As the Marja offensive continued, Lt. Col. Matt Baker, commander of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, said that in recent days more roadside bombs have been found in the "green zone" of Nawa near the bazaar and the district government center.

Before Marines descended on sprawling Helmand province in southern Afghanistan last summer, Taliban fighters controlled Nawa, extorting merchants, closing its school and clinic, and killing anyone who opposed them. They fled to nearby Marja after several weeks of sporadic gunfire aimed at the Marines.

At a community meeting Saturday in an outlying neighborhood of Nawa, Baker urged a group of more than 200 Afghan men to help the Marines keep the Taliban from reasserting their dominance in this agricultural area.

"The people need to be brave," Baker said. "The reality is that many of the insurgents from Marja will try to come to Nawa. We have to be a strong team and force them out."

…

Among other tactics, the Marines are bringing a Muslim chaplain to Nawa to talk to the community's elders and religious leaders. Support for the Taliban has been strongest among mullahs and others, who often tell their faithful to oppose the Americans and any Afghan who sides with them.

"Religion is one of the strengths of Afghanistan," said Baker, adding that the Marines are in Nawa to stay. Although his Hawaii-based battalion will leave in a few months, another will take its place, he said.

"Your Marines, the Nawa battalions, are ready to keep working with you," he said.

May 19^th: Watching HBO. Movie is called Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery

The movie is only 53 minutes long. 23 minutes in, Gregory Medina is interviewed at his son’s grave. Brian Medina died in Fallujah one month before his 21^st birthday. Gregory took this photo on that birthday:

Brian was Bravo Company, 1/3 Marines – same company as Jacob. Jacob would die in Marjeh 62 months later. Brian & Jacob. Iraq & Afghanistan. Bush & Obama.

Both Bravo and both facing the same enemy.