Asawin Suebsaeng asks if ground tactics in Afghanistan have really changed since the Bush years:
Along a sunburnt dirt road, amid the obscure mountain stretches surrounding Kabul, lies a small rural Afghan town called Kharabagh. Situated atop a rocky, angled slope, the village now serves as an unofficial refugee haven for about 30 families. Formerly of the Jalrez district in the Wardak province of Central Afghanistan, these families fled their previous residence after a new U.S. military compound was erected adjacent to their village. The base, built in February, not only encroached on the village’s cemetery and school but inevitably attracted Taliban gunfire and harassment. After suffering the burden of U.S. military checkpoints, the terror of extremist combatants regularly stalking them, and mounting civilian casualties, it was no surprise that the villagers abandoned their homes. Since they took shelter with relatives and friends in Kharabagh, their hometown remains generally deserted, bullet-riddled, and overwhelmed by soldiers.
