Security

Firepower Trumps 'Soft Power' in This Afghan Town

MIANPOSHTEH, AFGHANISTAN – Just about every day, the Marines of Echo company trade bullets with the local Taliban. The troops set out on patrol, until the militants shoot at them. The Marines seize compounds, waiting for the Taliban to try to seize them back. But Echo didn’t come here to get into gunfights, company commander […]

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MIANPOSHTEH, AFGHANISTAN – Just about every day, the Marines of Echo company trade bullets with the local Taliban. The troops set out on patrol, until the militants shoot at them. The Marines seize compounds, waiting for the Taliban to try to seize them back.

But Echo didn't come here to get into gunfights, company commander Capt. Eric Meador insists. These Marines arrived in Mianposhteh two months ago to win the allegiance of this farming community by providing some basic security and economic development to the local people -- part of top U.S. commander General Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes swaying populations over killing enemies.

The trouble is, Meador and Echo are too busy fighting the guerrillas here to execute McChrystal's "soft power" approach. In one day in late August, Echo had six different incidents of "troops in contact" -- milspeak for servicemen under fire. Three Marines serving with Echo have died in 60 days. Ten more have been wounded. Close calls have become nearly routine: Bullets missing arteries by quarter-inches, unexpectedly bursting on walls behind, slamming into chest plates without effect. All of which pushes chai sessions with local elders down the priority list. "The whole counterinsurgency, focus-on-the-locals thing – we're not quite to that point yet," Meador says.

Any fight against insurgents is going to involve some shooting, of course; there are guerrillas who can't be reconciled, and militants who won't be pushed out by mere public pressure. But Meador is using a very different tactic. He's deliberately sending his Marines out to provoke fights with the Taliban, in order to keep the militants off-balance – and give some of the pro-government villages a chance to rebuild. "I call it the eye gouge," Meador says. "To keep the good areas here relatively calm, you have to go to the enemy and punch him in the chest, punch him in the face."

The approach would appear to be at odds with McChrystal's guidance to his troops. "Sporadically moving into an area for a few days or even a few hours solely to search for the enemy and then leave does little good, and may do much harm," McChrystal recently wrote. "Once we depart, the militants re-emerge and life under insurgent control resumes. These operations are not only ineffectual, they can be counter-productive. In conducting them, we are not building relationships with people, and we are not helping Afghans solve Afghan problems."

Meador knows what he's doing doesn't neatly align with his boss' orders. He also knows it'd be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day fight, and lose sight of the war's larger goals. "You have to closely consider what you use as a measure of effectiveness. Gaining ground for more standoff – that's not necessarily a measure of effectiveness. If we push the enemy another two clicks [kilometers] back and the locals still hate me, that's not effectiveness," he tells me.

Meador says he tries to spend as much time as he can ingratiating himself to influence-makers here. But that time is hard to come by, when his troops keep getting shot at. So instead, Meador largely outsourced the relationship-building and economic development duties. British Capt. Harry Stow serves both as a mentor to the Afghan National Army and as an unofficial ambassador from the coalition forces to Mianposhteh.

He's a natural at it, with a big smile, a shaggy 'do, and an easy way with all kinds of people. He jokes with farmers' kids -- in Pashto. He sits cross-legged and talks crop prices with local bigwigs like he was chewing over Man U's latest match against Arsenal. "He can come see us if he has any problems. We're totally separate from any Americans. It's very important he know that," Stow asks his interpreter to tell Khari Saida Rahman, a village mullah who bears an uncanny resemblance to* Almost Famous* star Billy Crudup.

Stow describes he and Meador's split of duties as "not quite 'good cop, bad cop.'" But it's close. It'd be a decent arrangement. Except, the good cop is leaving town. By the time you read this, Stow should be on his way back to England.

The Marines are supposed to take over his "soft power" responsibilities. But, outside of the already-overtaxed Meador, it's hard to see who might assume that role. The day after I go on patrol with Stow, I head out with a Marine squad. None of them has a single word of Pashto in their vocabularies. They have to ask their interpreter how to say mananah, thanks.

We come across a kid, maybe 10 years old, hanging out by a compound doorway. He's got plaster on his long face, a paisley cap on his head, and an olive tunic covering his torso. The kid stops the interpreter, and tells him his little brother is sick. A second kid, also wearing olive, hobbles out. His foot is swollen and almost as green as his garment. The squad's medic gives him some Tylenol – and tells him to go see the local doctor. If only there was one nearby.

Then the squad walks through a decrepit market, abandoned since the local Taliban ordered it closed in early July. For the first time, there's actually someone there – a man on a motorcycle, collecting some things from one of the stalls. None of the marines bother to ask him why he's come back. When you're used to violence's high volume,
quiet signals like this often go unnoticed.

Meador has an economic development shura scheduled for this month. It's Echo company's first real effort to try to revitalize the local economy, and build some deeper relationships in the community. His expectations about it, and about this cycle of firefights, are minimal, at best.

They don't make troops any tougher, or any braver, than the devil dogs of Echo company. But for all the shots they've taken, all the ground they've gained, all the 120-degree days they've had to endure, even their leader can't say exactly what their tour will accomplish. By the time it's up, "We'll still be making contact in the same areas we make contact in now," he says. "You have to look beyond your deployment to make progress."

[PHOTO: Noah Shachtman]

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