Remember Marjah? The Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan captured several weeks ago by U.S. and Afghan forces? I remember the offensive being hailed as a big deal. Well, what happened?

Although they have been pushed out of power in Marjah, Taliban insurgents have slowly been trying to reassert some measure of control.

Marjah residents have told U.S. Marines that Taliban insurgents are coming around at night to threaten and beat Afghans who cooperate with the Americans.

In at least one confirmed case, said U.S. military officials, the Taliban beheaded a local resident suspected of working with U.S. forces. The U.S. Marines are checking out at reports of at least two other beheadings in Marjah.

If that weren’t enough, the newly appointed Afghan official for Marjah, described as “the Afghan face of the American-led military offensive,” is Haji Zahir, who served four years in a German prison for attempted murder after stabbing his stepson.

Maybe this question will come across as obvious, but what discernible interest does America have in clearing regions we can’t hold, and backing ex-cons to disperse hundreds of thousands of U.S. tax payer dollars “to repair schools, clean canals, and compensate Afghan families who lost relatives” to people who will likely turn back to the Taliban anyway?

While residents of Marjah have little affection for the Taliban, they say they nevertheless prefer them over the non-Islamic Americans and the corrupt Kabul government.

This piece in Foreign Policy, “Down the AfPak Rabbit Hole,” confirms my suspicions that the offensive in Marjah was in part a PR stunt intended to galvanize public support for the war back at home (HT: Justin Logan).

The “Rabbit Hole“ ‘s authors, Thomas H. Johnson, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, and M. Chris Mason, a retired Foreign Service officer who served as a political officer in Paktika province, write “this battle—the largest in Afghanistan since 2001—is essentially a giant public affairs exercise, designed to shore up dwindling domestic support for the war by creating an illusion of progress.”

That sentiment was echoed several weeks ago by Greg Jaffe and Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post. They write, “The campaign’s goals are to convince Americans that a new era has arrived in the eight-year-long war and to show Afghans that U.S. forces and the Afghan government can protect them from the Taliban.”

For some sanity on this situation, and how much we have lost our way, listen to “Afghanistan and Conservatives” featuring Joe Scarborough.”