The Hard Way Out of Afghanistan

The Marines didn’t arrive in force in Helmand until 2009. Previously, the British controlled the region. Undermanned, ill equipped and far too thinly spread, they were unable to contain the Taliban revival already proliferating through Helmand by 2006. Only as recently as 2010 did coalition forces, bolstered by Obama’s troop surge, try to cauterize what Gen. Stanley McChrystal called the “bleeding ulcer” of Marja — a town just outside the provincial capital where the Taliban presided unmolested over a lucrative opium industry. Today the Taliban in Marja have been killed or vanquished to sparsely populated desert regions, and Afghan security forces have assumed most policing responsibilities in the town. Successful as it is, the taking of Marja was accomplished with an immense commitment of men and resources that could not realistically be brought to bear elsewhere in the province.