LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- The observation post near Route Georgia -- the U.S. military's codename for one of the roads running through this eastern province -- had a power problem. In the rugged, breadbasket district of Baraki Barak, 50 miles south of Kabul, there are just a few hundred* American soldiers and a similar number of Afghan security forces to provide security for tens of thousands of farmers and their families. To keep watch over the district between foot and vehicle patrols, the U.S. Army's 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry built observation posts atop mountain "spurs" -- ridges, essentially -- and outfitted them with sensors, weapons and radios. To keep its systems running around the clock, OP Spur on Route Georgia needed a generator.
The unit's solution to the problem of powering the observation post illustrates many of the most vexing challenges underlying the eight-year-old Afghanistan war. Poor infrastructure, daunting terrain, manpower shortages, equipment shortfalls and a sometimes ambivalent local populace dog not just 3rd Squadron, but the whole war effort. ...
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