日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

WORLD> America
US brigade retools for new Afghan mission
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-12 00:54

KANDAHAR/Afghanistan:More than 100 soldiers in the brigade studied Arabic for 10 months. Their officers boned up on Iraq by reading dozens of books.

Then, five months ago, the 5,000 troops of the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade were told they were headed to Afghanistan instead.

The Obama administration's decision to switch America's main battlefront from Iraq to Afghanistan is more than a geographic shift. While there are similarities between the two Muslim nations, there are also major differences in language, culture and topography.

The Fort Lewis, Wash.-based Stryker brigade, which arrived in southern Afghanistan last month as part of the U.S. troop surge, is among those scrambling to adapt.

There was only time to give about 50 soldiers a nine-week crash course in Pashto, the main language of southern Afghanistan.

"It was a whole 180-degree turn. It's like English and French: some words are the same but that's it. The grammar is different, the sentences are different," said Spc. John Dazey, a 21-year-old from Vacaville, Calif., who had to fit his training on driving combat vehicles around eight-hour-a-day language classes.

He spoke at the main international base in southern Kandahar provinceas he waited to deploy out to southeastern Afghanistan.

The soldiers will also encounter a society that is more conservative and traditional than Iraq's.

While two-thirds of Iraq's 28 million people live in major cities, three-fourths of the 34 million Afghanslive in rural areas, where conservative values remain strong. Nearly three-quarters of Iraqis can read and write. In Afghanistan, only 28 percent are literate — with rates for women about half that.

All that is especially true among the Pashtuns, the biggest ethnic group and the vast majority of the Taliban. U.S. troops must win over the Pashtuns if there is to be peace in Afghanistan.

Soldiers who've gone through the language course are briefing their comrades on how to interact with the local population — part of the U.S. strategy of building ties to the community.

Dazey has told the men in his squadron to avoid talking to women, or even looking at them — a cursory glance at a burqa-covered woman can be seen by her husband as a lewd come-on.

"The Pashtuns, we've been told the culture is a lot like the Arabic culture except it's on steroids," he said.

Perhaps most importantly, engaging Afghans — and the Pashtuns in particular — requires a different approach.

"Afghanistan is more of a tribal-based society," said Lt. Col. William Clark, commander of the Stryker brigade's 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment. "There are more informal leaders you have to recognize."

Conversely, the brigade faces a tightly organized Taliban structure in Kandaharwith commanders and even spokespeople, in contrast to the loosely connected insurgency of Iraq.

The Stryker brigade, named after its fast-moving tank-like assault vehicles, is meant to be a next-generation fighting forceequipped with advanced communication technology and soldiers skilled in both fighting and peace-building.

Some of the Pashto-speaking soldiers have been given special permission to grow a beard to better interact with men in a culture where a beard is a sign of manhood.

"The fact that so many of the military guys are so against it shows how much cultural importance a beard can have," Col. Harry Tunnell, the brigade commander, said.

Operating in Afghanistan — a country of few roads, no national electricity grid, formidable mountains and bleak stone deserts — presents major challenges.

Soldiers who have done Iraq tours talk about being wowed by Saddam Hussein's palaces. Here they're lucky if they find a road.

At Kandahar Air Field, a massive truck laid down a metal track sturdy enough for the 38,000-pound Strykers to cross.

"When we were going to Iraq, I didn't think we'd be using these bridges at all. Things are more developed there," said 1st Lt. John Davis as he tested a bridge-laying vehicle.

He said they'll use the bridges to establish new routes over small waterways or gullies, or cross areas bombed out by Taliban explosives.

And while terrain in southern Afghanistan is not that different from the Iraqi desert, if the brigade moves farther up the eastern border, they'll confront mountains and valleys still littered with the carcasses of Soviet tanks from the war in the 1980s.

In Iraq these soldiers would have been taking over from existing brigades, but here they're deploying in a part of the country that has only had a sparse international force and never an American presence.

The Stryker vehicles are flown over. The operating bases have to be built and no one knows for sure how the Taliban will respond in an area where they've never been given much of a fight. This will be the first deployment for the brigade and for many of its soldiers, so many are studying up to make sure they're ready for a different theater with a lot more responsibility.

"If we went to Iraq we'd already have assumed operations," said Maj. Joe Hugh, the executive officer of the brigade's Special Troops Battalion, comprised of soldiers with various technical specialties. "Here it's a Rubik's Cube. We're just trying to figure it out every day."

主站蜘蛛池模板: 99这里只有精品视频 | 国产亚洲精品久久久久动 | 丁香婷婷视频 | 日韩欧美激情视频 | 337人体粉嫩噜噜噜 黄色大片免费网站 | 国产一区二区成人 | 日韩国产综合 | 三级视频在线播放 | 日本在线观看www | 91社在线播放 | 成人国产精品视频 | 日韩午夜影院 | 蜜桃视频黄色 | 国产成人一区二区在线观看 | 国产1区2区3区 | 五月婷综合网 | 嫩草在线观看视频 | 亚洲欧美另类视频 | 看全色黄大色黄大片大学生 | 亚洲视频精品 | 一区二区av | 亚洲最黄网站 | 日本中文字幕一区 | 日本91网站 | 免费看黄色三级三级 | 色综合中文字幕 | 天天摸天天操天天干 | 蜜臀久久99精品久久久久久宅男 | 性一交一乱一乱一视频 | 久久综合免费视频 | 久久中文免费视频 | h在线看 | 日韩毛片在线观看 | 日韩尤物 | 国产污视频| 亚洲淫视频 | 亚洲色诱| www.五月婷| 日本韩国一区二区三区 | 久草综合在线 | 天堂成人在线视频 |