Victory Day

"Well here we are, a week away from Victory Day, the third annual national holiday celebrating the martial history of Afghanistan. There is Independence Day in August, which celebrates running the Brits out of the country in the 1800’s. Then, there is Liberation Day, in February, which marks the end of direct Soviet Army involvement. So next week, we pause to remember the days when Afghans beat the stuffing out of each other with Victory Day - celebrating the defeat of the Soviet backed Najibullah regime in 1992.

High noon in downtown Lashkar Gah - it will be a ghost town like this for at least another week

It’s still ‘crickets down’ in the Helmand Province. We suspect Victory Day will mark the start of the fighting season. The last of the poppy harvesters will return home, sort out their share of paste, rest a bit and then cast around for something to do. It appears that for most of the adult males in Helmand, fighting the foreigners for pay, is no longer quite the attractive option. The WaPo published a story last week about how the United States Marine Corps is wearing out the Taliban the old-fashioned way – by shooting them. This trend is noted here by the Belmont Club, and here by Herschel at The Captains Journal, and here by the Long War Journal. This latest article on the martial prowess of the Marines, comes at a propitious time (even though it was based on a Bing West embed last fall) because my Dad, of all people, sent a new Marine recruiting poster which I can now share-even with the F bomb-"
FRI