Echoes of Vietnam

This should sound familiar. A sovereign government less willing to fight insurgents than the U.S. forces trying to support it summons, of course, uneasy memories of Vietnam. What it means in Helmand is that the Marines are largely blind. Nicholson knows he needs native help to find the Taliban who are hiding among the population: "Another reason you want Afghan troops is because they can see guys on the street and tell you that this guy's not a local. … We're never going to be able to do that. But they can identify that [guy] right away. So it takes away the enemy's ability to hide."

NEWSWEEK's Sami Yousafzai, who has been in contact with Taliban leaders in Helmand, reports, "They claim that so far they don't see the Marines' offensive as anything that seriously threatens them. One commander is continuing to build a new house in Helmand while he commands his fighters. Others say their men are hiding their weapons, pretending to be simple villagers and at night planting what they call 'flowers'—IEDs hidden along the roads that allied forces will travel." (A spike in the number of IEDs is causing most allied casualties in Helmand.)

U.S. commanders hope that the Taliban will eventually have to show themselves to harvest opium, which Nicholson calls "the engine that drives the Taliban." But the opium is harvested by hundreds of small farmers. "The Taliban leaders think that once the Marines and the Afghan security forces start confiscating caches of opium in people's houses—their livelihoods and the only security that they will be able to feed their children—villagers will be more than happy to help the Taliban," Yousafzai reports. Plus, the locals know that, whatever the U.S. promises now, the Marines will eventually move on, whereas the Taliban won't.

As in Vietnam, the question of how many troops the U.S. must commit to Afghanistan is already shaping up as a political quandary for President Obama. In March, he agreed to send 17,000 additional combat troops, plus another 4,000 to train the Afghans, bringing the total to 68,000. The White House has made it clear that Obama will not welcome calls for more. Yet the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, already believes he needs several thousand more. He reportedly wants to double the size of the Afghan Army from the planned 134,000. That would cost billions of dollars and require thousands more Americans to train them. Inevitably, the question after that will be how many U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan until those Afghan forces can take over.

In the meantime, the Brits are in trouble. British forces went into Helmand in early 2006 under orders from Prime Minister Gordon Brown to minimize casualties. So those 5,000 hunkered down in three firebases in northern Helmand, and accomplished little. Now they've been ordered to support the U.S. offensive. But the Taliban, apparently realizing that the Brits are the weaker link, have targeted them: 15 dead in 10 days—eight in one day—with three times that number in disabling injuries, according to one British source. Their commander, too, now wants more troops—to say nothing of more and better equipment. (Budget cuts have left them with so few helicopters that they have to beg for rides from Americans, and their vehicles are poorly armored against the IEDs.)

The latest poll suggests that two of three Britons support pulling out of Afghanistan. As casualties mount, so will the pressure on Brown to set a withdrawal date. The White House is sufficiently alarmed by this prospect that President Obama has been trying to give Brown both public and private support. But General McChrystal's report on the situation, due in August, is likely to present Obama with his own set of political challenges. Obama's War isn't going well.

© 2009