In mid-October something interesting happened in Afghanistan. In Helmand province, the Pashtun heartland, U.S. Marines prepared to fight their way north as far as the strategically important Kajaki Dam. They expected a tough battle. Route 611, the main supply route, runs through country that in recent years has been crawling with Taliban fighters who desperately want to keep control of an important assembly area. I feared heavy casualties when we set out. But that didn’t materialize. The Marines met relatively slight resistance as they cleared and secured the road to the north. Most of the Taliban fled rather than fight.
Perhaps we should have expected it. The Taliban have taken a ferocious beating over the past year in what were once their strongholds in southern and southwestern Afghanistan. They are demoralized and finding it harder to resupply with men, money and weapons. The fighting campaign they boasted of this summer has been a flop. And that is because the troop surge by the United States and other NATO and international partners provided the military means to take on the insurgency and beat it.
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