That was the title of a BBC documentary on the Queen's Company of the Grenadier Guards in Afghanistan that aired on CBC last night. It presented a troubling look at the Taliban, seen through a NATO gunsight.
The Brits are trying to control Helmand province just as Canada has responsibility for Kandahar province. Like Canada, the Brits are heavy on firepower and light on manpower.
The 90-minute documentary followed about 60-British soldiers patrolling for the Taliban. They found them. When the Brits fixed the insurgents' positions, they brought in gunship helicopters, mortars, heavy machine guns and, finally, jet fighters to pulverize their hopelessly outgunned guerrilla adversaries.
What happened? Time after time the Brits called down the best of Western killing technology on the Taliban. They rocketed houses where the bad guys were sited. They even blew entire housing compounds completely to rubble with 500-pound bombs. They lobbed mortar rounds at them and raked their positions with heavy machine gun fire. It was spectacular. And then there was calm and the Brits and their Afghan army counterparts began to relax and walk around. Within minutes the Taliban opened up again, sending them scrambling for cover.
This happened over and over. They must have been killing the Taliban in large numbers but, each time, it was the Taliban who brought the fight back to the Brits, attacking their vastly superior enemies.
I was left wondering how a handful of insurgents, armed with only 50s vintage assault rifles and a few rocket-propelled grenades, could stand their ground, again and again, against such withering fire? Why didn't they run?
Eventually sunset arrived and the Taliban did leave, on their own terms and with their weapons and casualties. When the Brits patrolled the area the following morning they found neither bodies nor abandoned weapons.
If this is the enemy we're up against, we can get rid of any illusions about breaking these people. Rockets and bombs and artillery aren't going to decide this conflict. I think we'd better figure out a new approach.
2 comments:
I been saying this since the begining, fire power can destroy armies but it takes people on the ground, in harms way to control the country. The west can do nothing but blast away until the afghanis (if they ever can) field the manpower to patrol such a large barren country.
If we don't dump the Cons we'll be there for a Generation.
I should mention, LoW, that the documentary also provided a fascinating insight into the Afghan army soldiers accompanying the Brits. When the Taliban started sniping, the ANA kids went out, put their AKs on full auto, and blasted away into the void, wasting their ammunition. Once that was done, they went back behind a wall, sat down among the Brits and pulled out marijuana joints (big spliffs too) and toked up. One Brit soldier told the BBC these guys go for the weed whenever there's gunfire.
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