(Thumbnail image: Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

“The United States and its allies announced today, indeed, the target of their first big offensive since President Obama ordered more troops into the war zone.  Coalition forces now say they will focus on the city of Marjah and surrounding areas in the Helmand province; that’s really the center of the opium trade that helps fund the Taliban…” (FOX News)

The typically tight-lipped US military is spilling the beans about its next Taliban target.  The move has people debating the government’s strategy and true intentions. 

We’re looking at perspectives from FOX News, Al Jazeera English, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and PBS. 

Al Jazeera English reports the US is warning civilians of the impending attack, but they may also be giving the Taliban time to organize.

“They [the Taliban] have had many days to prepare for this - it's the same sort of situation I saw in Iraq when the assault on Fallujah came about; everyone knew that was going to happen at the time…”

A FOX News contributor speculates the government may be banking on a Taliban retreat, but that strategy could backfire. 

“…it is in keeping with General Stanley McChrystal’s desire to keep down civilian and military casualties.  Now it’s a gamble.  It could allow the Taliban to escape and regroup somewhere else as the insurgents did in Iraq in the face of an all-out assault on Fallujah in 2004.”

But a writer for the Financial Times says not only will the Taliban stay – they’ll die fighting.  

“A Taliban officer … says he commands 145 men said fighters had been bolstering their defences of the town, believed to include mines and booby traps hidden in surrounding irrigation ditches. An estimated 1,000 or more Taliban fighters were believed to be in the town.”

Two Wall Street Journal contributors say warnings of a future attack on the city may only be a diversion.  

Constable: “What makes you believe that this isn’t just more misinformation and maybe, actually, the US military is going to be somewhere else and doing something and they got two towns for the price of one.” 

Bussey: “…headfaking your enemy has a long history, and you’re absolutely correct and this is a remarkable headfake.”

Finally, on PBS, a McLaughlin Group panelist argues in the end, the escalation will only be a futile effort.

“I literally do not think that there’s any way that we’re going to change that society.  Most of the people are illiterate, we have virtually no real connection with them.  At the very most we’ll be able to keep a lid on it for a short period of time.  I think we’ve got to find a political alternative and the political alternative is some kind of negotiated deal with the Taliban.”

So, do you think advertising military plans is a smart strategy? Do you think it is a trick?

Writer: Ben Stewart

Producer: Newsy Staff