'Government in a box' in Marja

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'Government in a box' in Marja
No doubt the U.S. military will succeed in clearing the Afghan town of the Taliban. But can we bring lasting change?

By Andrew J. Bacevich

February 17, 2010

What you see depends on where you sit. My seat at present is in Marfa, a small town in rural West Texas. Yet Marfa turns out to be an oddly instructive vantage point from which to contemplate the latest developments in far-off Afghanistan.

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The purpose of Operation Moshtarak (Dari for "together") is to clear the Taliban from the city and then to fix the place, winning the hearts and minds of the local population. Toward that end, said Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of Western forces in Afghanistan, "We've got a government in a box, ready to roll in." As government arrives on the coattails of the Marines, it will ensure law and order, set up schools and clinics, repair roads, revitalize the irrigation system and cajole farmers into cultivating something other than opium poppies. The successful transformation of Marja will demonstrate the viability of McChrystal's plan to transform Afghanistan as a whole. At least that's the idea.

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Yet the very rich military history of Marfa, Texas, suggests another possibility. American soldiers arrived here on the arid, high plains of the Big Bend region in 1911 to help secure the Mexican border, then the site of considerable violence. They remained for decades, first at Ft. D.A. Russell, a cavalry post erected on the outskirts of town, and then at Marfa Army Airfield, a training complex built during World War II.

While it lasted, that military presence loomed large in the town's daily life. The cavalry troopers of the prewar army and the hordes of draftees passing through during the war underwrote the local economy. Their paychecks kept afloat movie theaters, restaurants, saloons and other establishments catering to the needs of young men.

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Melodramatic news reports frequently refer to Afghanistan as "the graveyard of empires." But you don't need a graduate degree in Central Asian history to know how Operation Moshtarak is likely to end. It's enough to know the history of small American towns where soldiers came, stayed awhile and then moved on, leaving hardly a trace.

No doubt the Marines will succeed in securing Marja. Their commanders promise to stay on to see the mission through, and they may even believe what they say. Yet when the last American climbs aboard a departing helicopter -- probably within a few years at most -- Marja will remain incorrigibly Marja. A couple of decades from now, no one will remember why the Marines came or what they did.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bacevich17-2010feb17,0,1943110.story