More than 10,000 Afghan, British and American soldiers, along with United States Marines attacked into Afghanistan’s poppy-growing heartland in the predawn darkness Saturday morning.

Third Battalion, 6th Marines leapt into combat, hopping over the maze of canals and minefields in 60 helicopters of  Marine Air Group 40 and Task Force Pegasus, the Combat Aviation Brigade of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. The Marines were on the outskirts of Marjah’s bazaar before enemy fighters could get their pants on.

Major General Nick Carter, NATO commander for Southern Afghanistan said this about the initial assault in an interview early on Saturday: “The amount of aviation that was used and the way it was used, the number of objectives, and the extent to which the enemy was dislocated in terms of that overwhelming arrival between 2AM and dawn this morning was impressive, to say the least.”

More Marines and soldiers advanced on the ground closing the vice on the enemy. The advance on the ground was slow through heavily mined poppy fields. The danger to our men will not be from enemy counterattacks. The danger in this operation will come from hidden IEDs and home-made bombs.

On the eve of the attack, Taliban leaders, knowing that their options were slowly being eliminated, issued orders for civilians to remain in Marjah. Many families defied these orders, hopped in cars and trucks when the Taliban commanders were not watching and fled.

“We were not allowed to come here. We haven’t brought any of our belongings; we just tried to get ourselves out,” said Bibi Gul, an elderly woman who arrived in nearby Lashkar Gah with three of her sons along with hundreds of other fleeing civilians. The Afghan government is prepared to shelter 7,000 families in nearby towns.

With their hostages gone and Marines on the horizon, most of the Taliban will attempt to slip away to fight another day. They will scatter to the winds and hope that their hidden explosives will inflict many allied casualties. These cowards will run.

And, with every Taliban coward that flees the fight, the level of violence will be decreased; thus reducing the chance of civilian casualties. General McChrystal is brilliant. If the enemy stands and fights – he will surely die. If he runs, he will lose his source of income and control over the people of Helmand.

The kinetic portion of Operation Moshtarak will be violent and fast. The Taliban will be quickly ejected from Central Helmand. But, Operation Moshtarak will last quite some time. Provisional Reconstruction teams, the Afghan National Army and Afghan Police will saturate the area with the sole intent of improving the lives of the people of Helmand. And, they will stay. The Taliban will not be allowed to return.

Much like a cancer patient, surgery is often traumatic and dangerous, but months of chemo-therapy are necessary to completely remove the malignancy. In the coming months, the Afghan government, NATO and the United States will work tirelessly to improve the lives of the people of this agricultural area. If they are successful, the Taliban will become irrelevant.

Without a population to support their cause, they will be defeated.

The weapons of 21^st Century counter-insurgent warfare are books and jobs not bullets and bombs. Victory in Afghanistan requires a cultural and economic shift. But, in order to achieve success, we must first secure the people. We cannot wave a magic wand and instantly bring Afghanistan into the modern world; it will take years to improve the Afghan people’s lives. Nothing can be accomplished with violence in the streets and fear in the countryside. First, and foremost, we must establish a modicum of security.

This is no simple task. Afghanistan’s population is dispersed in small villages throughout a rugged terrain, in a nation one-and-one-half times the size of Iraq. The enemy can go anywhere and we have to defend everywhere. We must work to protect the people and improve their daily lives against all factions: al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Iranian infiltrators, local warlords and a corrupt government. Establishing security is a manpower intensive proposition. This is why General McChrystal has asked for additional troops. He needs to secure the major population centers: Kabul, Qandahar and Jalabad and then slowly expand the perimeter of peace throughout the land.

Then, and only then, can we work to build a modern society. Then, and only then, can we improve governance and the Afghan economy. Then, and only then, can we improve the plight of the everyday Afghan family. Victory will be measured by the number of children attending school and the number of breadwinners earning an honest day’s pay.

A basic tenant of counter-insurgent operations is not to take the fight to the enemy, but to be prepared to defeat them when they bring the fight to you. The goal is to protect the people and eliminate the enemy’s influence among the population. The goal is to make the enemy irrelevant. Again, the geography of Afghanistan calls for large numbers of troops. We must be able to saturate an area with massive force in response to enemy activity and be able to have sufficient other forces to protect the people from insurgent intimidation and more troops to train the Afghanis to protect themselves.

Today, we can neither protect the people nor lessen the enemy’s influence. Today, the enemy has the advantage and we are in a reactionary mode.

WE MUST GAIN THE INITIATIVE!

Until we gain the initiative, we are losing the fight. We must force the enemy to react to us. But, focusing on American only goals is the surest way to be seen as an occupying force and the fastest way to failure. A purely military operation will eventually be defeated. We must avoid the temptation to focus on Al Qaeda’s leaders alone. We must attack on all fronts: military, economic and diplomatic. We must work to better the lives of the people—to win their “hearts and minds.”

Today, there are only three career paths in Afghanistan: Drug Lord, War Lord and corrupt government official. To win in Afghanistan we must reach out to the Afghan people—first—to protect them, and then to provide decent medical care and an education for their children. We must work to help villagers develop micro-economies; helping them plant alternative crops, dig wells, build roads, set up windmills and solar energy sources to help pump water to their fields and villages. In short, we need to help them obtain clean water, good food, and hope for the future.

Surely we need fast-moving, agile combat forces, but we also need mechanics, electricians and nurses to win this war. The United States Army has already created a paradigm for the forces required. The Army’s 4^th Brigade Combat Team of the 1^st Armored Division is currently operating as the first Advice and Assist Brigade in southern Iraq.

It is collaborating with Provincial Reconstruction Teams, Military Transition Teams, and Police Training Teams to merge diplomatic, information, economic, and military power into an effective force for good in southern Iraq. The Brigade’s soldiers are currently enabling the Iraqi provincial governments to progress and establish a solid foundation for long-term security and peace.

THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR

Many here in America view this as a shooting war, a war in the classic sense where enemy combatants are shooting and killing each other until one is defeated, often with innocent civilian casualties. Some even consider this a war of aggression. The fact is that America has been at war with Islamic Fundamentalists since 9/11. We first attacked their safe-havens in Afghanistan in 2002 and then continued the fight in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines. That war continues. Our enemies still mean us harm. We cannot just come home and declare that the war is over. They will follow us home.

We must defeat the enemy by making him irrelevant not by appeasing him or even killing him. “It is a year-round struggle [in Afghanistan], often conducted with little apparent violence, to win the support of the people.”[1] This modern-day conflict will be won by improving the daily lives of real people. America’s military wants nothing more than to bring peace and security to the region. If you hate war, you should be in favor of sending more troops to the area, as McChrystal’s plan provides the only hope for stability in the region.

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Richard S. Lowry is a military historian and the award-winning author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and The Gulf War Chronicles. Watch for his new book: New Dawn: the Battles for Fallujah. It tells the entire story of Operation Phantom Fury and will be in bookstores in May of 2010. Visit www.RichardSLowry.com to learn more about Richard and his work.