Publisher's Synopsis
It is a great mystery why the US/NATO decided to take the war to Helmand. A better option would have been to simply defoliate the poppy crops using chemical agents and to concentrate on mining and fencing the Afghan Pakistan and Afghan Iran Border in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. A far cheaper, economical and cost effective option than building Camps Leatherneck, Dwyer etc and wasting valuable military lives in Helmand and Kandahar ? It is beyond the scope of this short work to research why the US went into Helmand . Was it to monopolise and control the vast drug country which Taliban linked drug mafia was controlling or was it to inflict a decisive military defeat on Taliban. Drugs were not eliminated as this was never a US objective . Taliban were not annihilated as US force ratios were too low and the US failed to severe the Talibans strategic line of logistics based in Pakistan. It is a great mystery why the US military established huge military presence right in the heart of drugs in Helmand and did nothing to eradicated drugs.Interestingly both US and Pakistan protected select drug mafia groups as both in all probability used narcotics to finance part of the war. Drug seizures declined radically after 9/11 in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and the period 2001-13 was the best era of life for the drug barons of all religions and ethnicities in Af Pak, UAE and Europe. In 2008 the US went in Helmand in force by establishing Camp Leatherneck. A US military contractor contacted me for boring wells in Helmand and in the process sent me an excellent map marking US camps in Helmand. It appears that establishment of Camp Leatherneck near Khanishin was viewed with extreme suspicion by the Pakistani military and 2008 saw a major surge in Taliban activity in targeting US troops with IEDs. It appears that the Pakistani military thought that if the Taliban did not exert greater pressure on the US troops in Helmand, US alleged support to Baloch insurgents would multiply as well as alleged US support to the Pakistani Taliban in FATA.These were seen as a NATO proxy to punish Pakistan for its covert support to Afghan Taliban.
