GARMSER, Afghanistan — For two years British troops staked out a presence in this small district center in southern Afghanistan and fended off attacks from the Taliban. The constant firefights left it a ghost town, its bazaar broken and empty but for one baker, its houses and orchards reduced to rubble and weeds.
But it took the Marines, specifically the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, about 96 hours to clear out the Taliban in a fierce battle in the past month and push them back about 6 miles.
Doesn't this sound remarkably like Basra, where the Brits basically ignored the Mehdi Army setting up their own little version of Iran for 2 years then declared victory and started for home. Someone finally had to come in and do the fighting an clean up the mess. And the entire time this was going on, the press made a big deal out of how efficient the British were at this type of thing compared to us clumsy Americans, and British generals were more than ready to rub our noses in it.
It isn't just the Brits though. It seems that any operation where NATO is in the lead has no success unless Americans supply the majority of the troops and usually the majority of the leadership. Just once I would like people too appreciate this.
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