Last October, U.S. and Afghan forces destroyed the Taliban-infested village of Tarok Kolache in the Arghandab River Valley with 25 tons of bombs. The good news: no civilians died, according to the U.S. military. The bad news: the U.S. will spend up to $1 million to rebuild it and several other nearby villages wiped out in an effort to wipe out the Taliban. The unknown news: how this kind of thing goes over with the locals in the long run.
Paula Broadwell, a research associate at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership now in Afghanistan, recently reported on the village’s destruction on Tom Ricks’ Best Defense blog. As you can imagine, it’s already generating comment.