Korangal and Marja

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This map shows a region our military calls “The Valley of Death.” The marker roughly indicates the location of the Korangal Outpost which we are now abandoning. Google shrugs when I ask it to find Korangal, but using the New York Times map inset today, I've centered the map on Sarkani, which approximately marks the location of the outpost. Jalalabad lies to the southwest, Peshawar to the southeast of this area.


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This map shows the location of Marjah in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, the “site” of a major offensive launched in February against a center supposedly 80,000 people strong. This is the terrain map of the place. I search in vain for signs of a city worthy even of a little dot.

An accompanying story on this subject appears on LaMarotte here. I was incensed, and on Ghulf Genes I prefer to maintain a higher level of decorum, if that’s the word to use. At the same time, WordPress, which is LaMarotte’s platform, does not permit me to embed a map.