Operation Moshtarak in Marjah, Afghanistan: An Analysis After One Year

A lot of folks are looking back one year to try to determine what was accomplished in The Battle of Marjah.  Last February 2010 one of the biggest operations of the Afghan War commenced when U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, British, Afghan and other coalition partners poured thousands of men into the area to wrest it from Taliban control.  The campaign did not go as quick or as well as planned.  It was a highly-publicized operation and was going to be a test bed for the later campaign in the battle for Kandahar and its surrounding area.  This week a lot of commentators and observers are focused on Marjah in an attempt to evaluate the accomplishments.  Some of those reports are provided below:

Marines of 1/6th choppered into Marjah at the beginning of the attack.  Read some of their recollections in "Their D-Day; Marjah veterans look back a year to where they were, lessons learned", marines.mil, February 16, 2011.

HBO is airing a documentary (on Feb 17, Thursday evening at 9:00 PM EST) called "The Battle for Marjah".  Read more on the documentary in "The Battle for Marjah, an Afghan War Film on HBO", The New York Times, February 16, 2011.

A former member of the "civilian surge" speaks out about what didn't go right with Marjah in "Memorials to Purposelessness", The Huffington Post, February 16, 2011.

The commanding general of Regional Command Southwest - where Marja is located - addressed Marjah in conversations with members of the media.  See "A year later, commander assesses progress in Helmand province", DVIDS, February 16, 2011.

An analyst of the war in Afghanistan, Joshua Foust, provides us with his insight to the Marjah campaign. See "Marjah one year on", February 15, 2011.  He ends his commentary observing that official press reports day Marjah was a success while public data indicates otherwise.