A sparsely populated province consisting mostly of desert, Nimroz has long been one of the most peaceful provinces in Afghanistan by default. Hidden in the southwest corner of the nation, behind the much more active Helmand Province, it has been of no real interest to US forces or the Taliban.
The US has claimed “security gains” in the province, but though some 2,000 Marines are nominally stationed here, local officials say they rarely stray from the tiny staging area in the northeast corner, and never stray into the provincial capital of Zaranj, a mostly Baloch town along the border with Iranian Balochistan.
It is here that locals say the insurgency is on the rise, with insurgents launching attacks on the city and killing members of the provincial council. In fact the council shuttered the doors of its tiny, bombed out headquarters in Zaranj and has relocated to Kabul.
The exact reason for the sudden interest in Nimroz is unclear, but with a growing number of US troops in Helmand it is possible they have simply relocated. Reports of militants running training camps in the desert, on both the Nimroz and Iranian sides of the border, also abound. The desert area across the border has long been a struggle for Iran, with its own Sunni insurgent groups, including the US-backed Jundallah, operating in the area. Now it seems that insurgency is an issue on both sides of the border.
Oh, on the border with Iran.
Oh.
US troops seldom seen, eh?
Oh.
No doubt those dumb Iranians just have no idea what is going on, oh no.
No match for the razor wits of McChrsytal and the US and NATO Einsteins.
Afghanistan – "The graveyard of soldiers and of empires" – has been for thousands of years and will continue to be for more thousands of years.
Mao was correct in his observation: "It is easy to defeat an arrogant enemy" – and NO one is more arrogant nor more stupid than America!
The war in Afghanistan is LOST – then again – has anyone even defined what 'winning' was suppose to be?
Catching bin Laden.
Like many a general before him, MacArthur believed one war would be much the same as the ext–even if it was against an entirely different enemy–so he failed to grasps the differences between the two great Asian armies he had fought in two different wars. In Worl War II, the Japanese had fielded a traditional army, fighting a conventional war, vulnerable not because of the limits of their individual soldiers' abilities, but because of the limitations of their country's industrial base. As a military force they were indeed vulnerable to traditional power, most particularly air power. The Chinese, by contrast, were the least industrialized of major nations, understood their vulnerabilities all too well, and adjusted their tactics accordingly. Much of the way they fought reflected the primitive status of their industrial economy. Their ability to shift vast forces without detection–moving some of their divisions up to fifteen miles at night without a single cigarette being smoked, then burying into handmade caves during the day–caught MacArthur and his immediate staff completely by surprise.
So as his troops continued their push toward the Yalu, the Chinese were carefully preparing what was, in effect, the largest ambush in the era of modern warfare. What the Chinese wanted was for MacArthur to move ever farther north, extending his own supplies lines ever more precariously. When Lei Yingfu had given Mao his briefing on MacArthur's likely assault on Inchon back in late August, the Chinese leader peppered him with questions not just about the general's tactics in the past but about about his personality as well. He was, Lei answered, famous for his arrogance and stubbornness." That intrigued Mao. "Fine! Fine" he said, "The more arrogant and stubborn he is the better". "An arrogant enemy, "he added, "is easy to defeat."
David Halberstam
Pardon the bad typing.
Note also–Napoleon, with his army recruited from French peasants, once moved a large detachment of infantry seventy miles at night undetected and had them ready to fight the next day. The Austrians were completely surprised because they literally thought it impossible.
This stretegically important area belongs to Baloch nation who r in struggle to break pakistan and iran to liberate their lost country "Balochistan' back. Balochs are religiously pluralistic people having no space for taliban, actually they are against talibans due to pakistan's military support for talibans, it can be a better policy to take baloch peoples support in fighting against extremism and terrorism here, not to depend only upon NATO no doubt very trained and well equipped it is but support of local people will multiply its strength and can produce more sustainable results.
Yes, yes, time to review just how gloriously true blue the US CIA treated the Hmong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_people
Isn't that really what the sanctions are about–yessir–in your dreams.