Rosie Dimanno with TheStar.com gives us her take on the interview with Marine Colonel Pete Petronzio concerning the recent operations in Helmand.

Modesty does not become the Marines.

Ooh rah!

Which is the Leatherhead ejaculation, not to be mistaken with Delta Forces’ hoo-wah.

“Absolutely not have we come to anyone’s rescue,” insists Col. Pete Petronzio, commanding officer of the 2,400 Marines currently deployed to a high-pucker factor (more jarhead jargon, think squeezed buttocks) battlefield operation in the southern quadrant of Helmand province.

Except, of course, the British have been there for a couple of years, and that opium-engorged province had been reeling increasingly out of control – insofar as any stability ever existed – ground zero for a Taliban insurgency that is unnerving much of Afghanistan and freaking out the Western interventionists.

And the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit was indeed summoned specifically – like the cavalry, except that’s army – to kick out some jihadist jam; war-wizened, most of them, from tours in Iraq, returning to a country they’d long ago abandoned on orders from their commander-in-chief, that person in the White House, ostensibly leaving the post-invasion mopping up to the U.S. Army (in the east) and the International Security Assistance Force (everywhere else, as of 2004.)

Relief agencies, which are not necessarily to be trusted – embedded journalists have been reporting otherwise – claim the Devil Dogs have been heavy-handed with the local population in Helmand, forcing many to flee their homes during bang-bang thrusts.

Most Canadians would likely cringe at some of the actions the Marines have employed, although these are conventional combat tactics, however contrary to antiquated notions of peacekeeping and group-hug reconciliation, the palaver approach that a certain faction urges for defanging the Taliban.

They blow up compounds – here is the evidence, on their own military website, of a jet fighter zapping a missile at a mud-walled redoubt near Garmser where insurgents had apparently amassed. They use explosives to carve out portals in thick walls so snipers can take aim.

If nothing else, this aggressive “clearing” operation has certainly seized the Taliban’s attention. They had become accustomed, in this critical transit route region, to going about their business willy-nilly, not aggressively pursued, in large part because the Brits didn’t have enough of a footprint around Garmser, stuck largely inside their ghost-town outpost, far from the primary base in Lashkar Gah.

Yes, the British have been loath to deploy the necessary forces to get the job done.  But harkening back to the “group hug” version of counterinsurgency, they have also had a poor strategy.  But Rosie continues:

“I hope that’s a direct positive effect,” said Petronzio. “We are on a main artery that runs south to north and potentially east to west. We are attempting to put a stopper in the bottle as far south as we can. Even that’s probably not a good analogy because eventually they will flow around us. But we are having an extremely positive effect on their south to north flow. And we will continue to do that.”

It is, Petronzio reminds, an asymmetrical fight. “You may think it’s clear and tomorrow it isn’t. But we’re working our way south.”

Marines are noted for their counterinsurgency wits and effectiveness. Their focus, as Petronzio explains, is pacifying the environment, whatever that takes, so that others – let us suggest coalition partners not so leathery – can set about implementing the subsequent phases of redevelopment.

“The whole concept behind counterinsurgency is … clear … hold … build. To simplify it as best I could, it’s all about clearing out the bad guys, providing that security and holding the ground to bring in the build behind you.”

That’s bringing up the rear after somebody else kicks ass.

“Are we uniquely suited to this? I don’t know.”

Except that he does.

“We may not be uniquely suited to ‘the build.’ So there will probably have to be someone who does that for a living, to kind of come in behind us.”

He didn’t mean it as such. But that’s a dig.

It isn’t routine to find such honest, witty, in-your-face reporting in Canada or Britain.  She almost sounds … American.  The Captain’s Journal likes Rosie.  Let’s hope she gives us more.