@Hit:
Even in Australia many fumes are seen in media about many factors causing fatality of oz soldiers including few mentioned above.
What media?
The media is flapping about as it looks good for their readers and viewers. Go talk to the services first. We have had 11 deaths so far. Some from IEDs. The biggest stink was the medical evacuation stuffup which did cause one soldier to die. The rest of the media jun is the media trying to stir up news. Neither party has said they want out now.
Afghanistan withdrawal by 2014 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Coalition 'just buying time' on Afghan plateau
:connie_running:
By Australia Network's Thom Cookes
Posted Mon May 18, 2009 11:00am AEST
Updated Mon May 18, 2009 1:24pm AEST
In a small, whitewashed room, about 20 people are crammed around the walls, the table crowded with teacups and bowls of almonds, bananas and sultanas.
US Army Major Aaron Wolfe smiles, leans back for a deep breath, and shakes his head in frustration.
To a large extent, the Obama administration's new Afghanistan and Pakistan policy hinges on the patience and tact of people like Major Wolfe and his colleagues.
A small force of American and Romanian troops are embedded inside Forward Operating Base Apache, a fortified camp ringed by watch-towers and blast barriers, set on a barren plateau outside the town of Qalat in Zabul province, south-east Afghanistan.
This is the field headquarters for the 2nd Brigade, 205th Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA), and the coalition troops are mentoring the ANA soldiers - not in a classroom, but out on the battlefield itself.
"It is a combat mission, and we're advising during combat," Major Wolfe says.
There simply are not enough troops to pull them out of the battle, so the mentoring continues as bullets whiz past and improvised explosives blow up the ANA and coalition vehicles.
"It's not ideal," the Major concedes.
A daily liaison meeting with the local ANA commander has devolved into yet another free-for-all, as Afghan soldiers chat on their mobile phones and even the commander picks up his handset and dials a number while one of his officers is in mid-brief.
Add to this the constant translations between English, Dari and Pashtu, and it is sometimes just too much for an ordered military mind.
"A lot of the social conventions in the west are not equalled here, like leaving your cellphone off or sticking with the person you are talking to through a meeting," Major Wolfe says.
"[The people here] are used to living moment by moment and taking everything as it comes. You get used to it and learn to work with the things you can change."
As I watch the operations briefing, one of the ANA officers marks on the map where his men have been attacked; six dead and 11 wounded during the last week.
Current plans call for the ANA to be grown to 122,000 men, but there is already talk in Washington of that figure more than doubling in the near future.
"At the end of the day, the Afghan security forces are the final solution to the security problem in Afghanistan," says Colonel William Hix, who runs the the US training effort in the South.
"Any presence or action that the Coalition takes really only buys time, or presents a temporary effect."
Local powerbrokers
Here in Qalat, the 2nd Brigade's commander, Major-General Jamal-Uddin, nominally commands about 3,000 troops, of which some 2,200 are trained and in the field.
A Tajik and former Northern Alliance mujahidin commander, he is a snapshot of Afghanistan's turbulent history.
On the wall is a picture of the current president, Hamid Karzai, but pride of place on the desk is a portrait of Ahmed Shah Mahsood, the legendary Afghan commander assassinated by Al Qaeda the day after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
I ask Major-General Jamal-Uddin if he knew Mahsood well; "Of course," he says, smiling broadly.
After watching him through several long meetings with various local officials, it is clear that he is politically astute, a player, and to some extent provincial powerbroker in this Pashtu town.
"Afghans are the ultimate survivors," Major Wolfe says.
"They know how to fit into a process, they have short memories when they need to, and there's generally not many long-term grudges because they can't afford to hold them."
Over the last 30 years, many of the older officers here have fought on many different sides of the conflict; for and against the Russians and for and against various insurgent groups, including what is lumped together in the West as "the Taliban".
Major-General Jamal-Uddin is about to receive a batch of new up-armoured US Humvee vehicles to replace the open, un-armoured pick-up trucks that his troops have now.
And according to the coalition troops, the security in Zabul, and Qalat particularly, is better than other provinces in the South such as Helmand or Kandahar.
A US State Department political analyst I speak with says that is due to a complex tribal deal that has been struck here.
Colonel Jim Overbye, the head of the local US training team, has a more simple explanation.
"This is a transit area; we are on the Pakistan border here and insurgent groups don't want to draw attention to themselves as they cross over," he says.
"Why would they whack the coalition or ANA? They know what would happen."
All mobile and satphone calls across this flat valley are extensively monitored, and even the bare mountains here have few hiding places.
The insurgents move about by blending in with the traditional nomads, who have always wandered across this area.
In the past 3,000 years, conflict has always ebbed and flowed across the sand of Zabul.
The British Army trudged across this plain to Kabul in the 1840s, and during their decade-long war in the 1980s, the Russians mined the top of the plateau next to the forward operating base I am writing from, which explains why the local shepherds do not go up there.
And perched above the town is an enormous mud and sandstone castle built by Alexander the Great over 2,300 years ago as his armies swept across from Macedonia. It is now an Afghan National Army outpost.
When you ask people here how long the Coalition forces will be in Zabul, there is an almost universal answer - a cryptic smile and a shake of the head.
Coalition 'just buying time' on Afghan plateau - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)