What the Russian envoy no doubt knew if the U.S. news agency's writer and editors didn't was that Rogozin's line was a quote from the Roman poet Horace: Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus. The mountains are in labor; a ridiculous mouse will be born.
While the mountain was writhing with a stillborn victory, U.S. President Barack Obama paid an unannounced one-day visit to the Afghan capital of Kabul to, as it can be safely assumed, remind his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai who was in charge of the country.
The following day the U.S.'s top military commander, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, visited Marjah forty days after the offensive was unleashed there and in a news report entitled "Mullen in Afghan war zone as US gears up for Kandahar" it was disclosed that "The United States and allies have boosted their troop numbers to 126,000, with the number set to peak at 150,000 by August as the fight expands into neighbouring Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgency." [7]
If the U.S. and its NATO allies faced 400-2,000 armed fighters in Marjah (the most common figure cited in the Western press was 600), a town of no more than 80,000 inhabitants, and still confronted snipers and improvised explosive devices a month and a half into the operation, Kandahar presents a challenge several orders of magnitude greater. The province has a population of almost one million with half that number in the capital. It is also, in the copy and paste style of the American establishment news media, routinely referred to as the "heartland of the insurgency" and the "birthplace of Taliban."
The assault on Marjah was intended and presented as a warm-up exercise for the campaign in Kandahar province and city scheduled to begin as early as June, and the public relations blitz before the February attack on Marjah was of a scope customarily reserved for high-budget Hollywood releases and professional sports events. The self-celebratory propaganda in advance of the offensive in Kandahar can be expected to exceed it in bravado and extravagance. To be proportionate to the scale of the fighting. The "battle for Kandahar" is intended to be the decisive victory in what will then be a nearly nine-year war, one that permits Washington and its Western allies to "retreat in dignity" from the Afghan imbroglio.
In preparation for the offensive the U.S. is increasing the transfer of troops and military equipment to the war zone. In early April the Pentagon's Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Ashton B. Carter affirmed that the "massive amount of equipment and supplies being sent to support troops in Afghanistan is a historic logistical effort," and stated:
"I think it's fair to say that there's never been, like in these months that we're witnessing right now, as dramatic a logistics effort as we see in Afghanistan." [8]
He was further cited detailing the expanding scope of the Afghan war surge supply effort: "From the ramp up of airlifts, sealifts and ground supply lines, to the building of forward operating bases, runways and tent cities...the effort to build up and supply the plus up of troops in Afghanistan is critical to NATO's success there." [9]
In 2008 NATO established its first multinational Strategic Airlift Capability operation at the Papa Air Base in Hungary, intended for supplying war efforts around the world in future but for the conflict in Afghanistan most immediately. The "first-of-its-kind mobility unit comprising airmen from 12 nations" [10] is staffed by U.S. military personnel, who are also now permanently stationed at bases in Bulgaria and Romania and later this month will be in Poland as well. Late last July the "first-ever multinational strategic airlift unit was officially activated...at a ceremony at Papa Air Base, Hungary, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe release." [11]
A Pentagon website disclosed this April 2nd that the Hungarian-based "Heavy Airlift Wing, comprised of 12 nations, recently moved 2.1 million pounds of equipment essential to surge operations supporting the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
"The international wing has been part of the operation to move more than 6 million pounds of basic expeditionary airfield resources, or BEAR materiel, to build six forward operating bases supporting 3,500 people...." [12]
At a press conference in early April the new commander of the U.S. Third - "Patton's Own" - Army (United States Army Central), Lieutenant General William G. Webster, informed reporters in Kuwait that "The military is scrambling to finish what it calls the largest movement of troops and equipment since the buildup of World War II as it draws down in Iraq and ramps up in Afghanistan."
He added that "the military is moving as fast as it can on the massive and complex job. There are roughly 3 million pieces of equipment in Iraq, including 41,000 vehicles and trailers," and "officials expect to be able to move the more than 5,000 vehicles needed for the Afghanistan buildup into that country by the end of the summer.
"Besides air deliveries to Afghanistan, the military is moving goods through neighboring Pakistan and is using a system of roads, rail and sea routes through Uzbekistan and other points to the north in Central Asia." [13]
General Webster's was not the only recent reference to World War II in regards to the Afghan war. There is no literal comparison between the ongoing fighting in Afghanistan and the most deadly and destructive armed conflict in human history. The Second World War included all the world's major industrial powers as belligerents (Sweden alone possibly excepted), which collectively mobilized up to 100 million troops.
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