Operation Medusa: The Furious Battle That Saved Afghanistan from the Taliban

by David Fraser, Brian Hanington

From the Canadian in charge of the joint military command in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan, this is the real on-the-ground story of one of NATO's bloodiest, most decisive and misunderstood The battle of Panjwayi, the defining moment of "Operation Medusa."In the summer of 2006, David Fraser was the Canadian general in charge of NATO's Regional Command South, a territory spanning six Afghan provinces surrounding the Arghandab Valley. Birthplace of the Taliban decades earlier, this fertile region had since become Afghanistan's most deadly turf. It would soon turn deadlier still. Advised in the night by his intelligence officers that the Taliban had secretly amassed for a full-scale military assault, Fraser knew it would fall to him, his Canadians and their allies to avoid the wholesale slaughter of NATO troops, keep the Taliban from laying siege to Kandahar and restore control of the south of the country to a newly formed, democratic Afghan government.     The odds were solidy against Fraser's forces. The Taliban knew every millimetre of their own terrain. During the months of secret manoeuvres they had stocked every farmhouse, school, grape hut and tunnel with weapons and ammunition. They had drilled Soviet-era landmines into all of the marijuana and poppy fields, and dug IEDs into every roadway. Protected from detection by corrupt officials, their sophisticated warfare schools had successfully readied an army of zealous fighters to attack and fight to the death. And now their top commanders were poised to launch decisive military operations against freshly arrived troops who had never seen combat.     The bloodiest battle in NATO's history was about to begin.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, War, Canada, Historical, 21st Century

271 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 8, 2018

About the author

David Allison Fraser is a retired Canadian Forces officer who served as a major-general in Land Force Command. Fraser's most noteworthy role was as brigadier-general during Operation Medusa, which took place in Afghanistan from September 1–17, 2006 as part of NATO’s coalition efforts in the region.

In May 2018, he released Operation Medusa: The Furious Battle That Saved Afghanistan from the Taliban, which he co-authored with Brian Hanington. The book recounts his experience as commander of NATO forces in this battle, detailing the preparation, execution and aftermath of the conflict.

Reviews

[Joel Trono-Doerksen · Rating 1 out of 5]

“You realize you never defeated us on the field of battle.” Says the American general,
To which the Vietnamese general replies, “And you never realized that it doesn’t matter.”

This is a great way to start the review of this awful book. It chronicles the battle in Kandahar that the Canadian troops led and fought. Throughout the book, David Fraser comes off like a teenager lauding the game in which they defeated the opposing football team, going on and on about this commander and this piece of equipment and how they "played whack-a-mole" and gave the Taliban the beatdown. He quotes himself yelling at the governor of Kandahar saying "You think you're tough but I'm David Fraser and I'm the biggest, meanest warlord in this part of the country. I've got more men, more weapons, and more ammunition than you'll see in your whole miserable life." Talk about over-compensation there David.

At one point he insults the Taliban as "not a formed army; they're thugs, a bunch of pick-up guys running an operation no different than gangs in Vancouver." Later he quotes someone who contradicts him completely saying "The Taliban are not an insignificant force. They are sometimes portrayed by the media and others [including David Fraser] as a ragtag, spontaneous group of a few people who fight. That's a really poor generalization of a very competent political, military, economic, and social entity." He also says throughout the book that the Taliban were disciplined, were strong fighters, learned from their mistakes, and managed to pull ISAF forces into ambushes. Doesn't sound like a gang to me. It is clear the Taliban learned from Operation Medusa because Fraser states that after they went back to guerilla tactics with more IEDs and suicide bombings and did not mass as they did before Medusa until of course the collapse of the government in 2021. David fails to mention that the day they declared victory there was a suicide bombing in Panjwayi that killed 4 Canadian soldiers. This type of arrogance and castigation of David's foe is followed up by his contention that the majority of the 50,000 Taliban soldiers that were killed, only joined the Taliban because of poverty or coercion. There couldn't possibly be any reason to join that organization like your brother-in-law is killed by occupying troops, your dad is taken to Bagram Airbase and tortured, your friend's marriage ceremony was bombed, you were internally displaced and had to live in a shanty town in Kabul and witness the building of massive palaces for the warlords that the occupiers are supporting, your sister, who's husband died fighting the Taliban, now has to give herself to the battalion commander to get her husband's pension, your neighbour's poppy crops were destroyed because he pissed off the wrong competitor that happened to be friends with the Americans or maybe a distant relative is the lone survivor after a Special Ops night raid that kills his entire family and the government tries to cover it up. Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone would want to join the Taliban!

David again insults our intelligence by stating that they "did everything we could to not rack up a body count." A ridiculous claim as he called part of Operation Medusa a "slaughter" and that they had killed between 1,000 and 1,500 Taliban (likely only about 500). Despite all their efforts to keep the number of enemy killed low (?), the Taliban "did their utmost to destroy and attack us wherever we were." Can you believe the people who were invaded and occupied and the ones you were fighting wanted to destroy you? You should be insulted, David! How dare they fight in the war that you were also engaged in fighting. They should have just given up and let your imperialist invasion go on, unmolested. Then the Taliban had the nerve to "run a dirty campaign of innuendo and accusations against the Afghan authorities and the international coalition, who they painted as self-interested invaders." The last part of that sentence might be the most truthful part of this whole book. If you actually study the conflict and are not blindly by your over-compensation and western arrogance, you would know that this conflict was not done in the best interest of Afghan people but for multinational corporations, arms dealers, and the thin rule of the Afghan elite, who leached off the people like a parasite.

The book becomes more interesting in light of the complete and total collapse of the Afghan kleptocracy in 2021. David writes that "our all-important capacity-building efforts have really made a difference can be judged only by future generations." It can be judged even sooner than that, only three years after you published this screed. Your efforts were failures and they cost the blood of treasure of many nations, especially that of Afghanistan. Despite all the military hardware you drool over in this book, from artillery to Predator drones, aircraft, and surveillance equipment, you and 37 nations were defeated. Yet another arrogant nation, thinking itself above the lowly Afghan, waltzed into the country and withdrew in embarrassing and humiliating failure and coincidentally two years to the day that I am writing this review. If you ever feel down and depressed dear reader just remember that the United States and 36 allied nations, including little David Fraser spent over 2 trillion dollars over 20 years in order to replace the Taliban with...the Taliban.

[Samuel Steffen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most comprehensive accounts of the Afghan War from a Canadian perspective. Canadian contributions Afghanistan are overlooked by the American public, and this book effectively raises awareness of our northern neighbor's determination and resilience in the-torn nation.

[Vic Lauterbach · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an good study of command in the post cold-war era. It is not a detailed account of the actual battle. The focus is on the complexities of planning and executing an operation, and the military and political problems that a coalition commander faces today. The background information on the state of the Canadian military in 2006 is very interesting as is reading an outsider's view of the U.S. military and other NATO contingents operating in Afghanistan. If you are interested in why Afghanistan has proved to be such a difficult conflict to end, this book provides many answers. If you are looking for stirring accounts of battlefield heroism, there is some of that here, but it is presented in a deliberately unsensational style. I appreciate why Fraser took that approach, but it makes the book a bit dull in places sometimes even when recounting very dramatic events.

[Bart Gauvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating story and insight into the inner workings of command in a fractious organization. Fraser brings personality with background thoughts and reason to the headlines. This battle will be debated for many years to come and Fraser's book should form the bases of that debate - the old platitude that history is not accurate until all the General's are dead; relies on a solid understanding of what those generals were thinking at the time. Operation Medusa provides just that. A great read.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent book for those interested in military strategy for development and deployment. I'm not so although I'm glad I read it to understand this part of the world, I didn't find the read enjoyable.

[Brentman99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really grabbed hold of me and didn't let go until I finished it.

Major-General David Fraser and Brian Hanington came together to write an excellent account of the action against the Taliban early on during Canada's move to Regional Command South (RC South) in 2006.

As I was in 1 CMBG HQ at the time and later on spent 9 months in Afghanistan with HQ 5-09, I'm sure that I have some biases with this book and in my review. Also, the factor that I know and interacted with some of the people in this book likely impacted me even further. However, I think that the book's straightforward nature captured MGen Fraser's voice very well.

For years I'd heard about Op Medusa, plus I had read other books, such as Christie Blatchford's excellent 15 Days, and wondered about the overall planning and behind the scenes machinations that went into the operation. As a former HQ staff member, I know the tremendous amount of work on many people's part that goes into such massive undertakings.

One thing that I think that the authors did very well without really outing any one nation was describing the maddening caveats that some nations put on their contingents. Some shared the glory of going to Afghanistan, but never once risked their troops, other than to get them to their camps or Kandahar Airfield, where they contributed very little to the war effort. It would have been too easy to name nations, but they were quite tactful by not really identifying or embarassing anyone. But they know who they are. These caveats put the burden and butcher's bill on those few nations who would willingly go in harm's way.

Once you read the story, I agree that the cover photo is quite haunting. Ironically, two of the four men in the picture were killed the day after it was taken.

I thought the quotes from various people, particularly Bill "MOther" Irving, added considerably to the book, rather than distracked, as they added to the strength of the command team.

Overall, I thought the book was very well written. I can't say 100% that everything in it is true or played out as described. In fact, I know that some big personnel changes in General Fraser's HQ took place late in the training preparations were not mentioned at all, which surprised me. Again, I chalk that up to trying to be discrete as those people were impacted quite heavily by being dropped from the A Team roster.

[R.A. Flannagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I re-read the title of this book in the context of August 2021, I have mixed emotions. So much effort, resources and lives sacrificed and in the end, Afghanistan could not saved from the Taliban. Very sad stuff.

Operation Medusa is mostly a 5,000 foot examination of the events that led to the operation and operation itself. General Fraser (the author) is a bureaucrat warrior who in my opinion, is more bureaucrat than warrior. Which is not to take away from the man’s service and achievements as a leader of Canadian soldiers. I found the portrayal of his leadership of Canada’s military forces in southern Afghanistan to be distant, almost aloof. But, having said that, I’ve read few books about Canada’s fighting in both WW I and WW II, and this approach wasn’t uncommon. No doubt there are advantages to being clinical when leading soldiers into battle, but just speaking for myself and knowing the type of leader I respond to, I found this off putting.

Leadership quibble aside, this book is an very good technical overview of the planning of Medusa. And while it did offer some insights into the fighting that took place, I was left wanting more detail on the actual fighting that took place. Thankfully, there's a few other books on Canada's war fighting experience in Afghanistan that are much more boots on the ground, so I feel like I've now captured the full spectrum activity that took place.

[Alex Valéry · Rating 3 out of 5]

the story was incredibly inspiring, but the way that the photos and excerpts are inserted is so disjointed that it pulls you out of the story every time

[Sailor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This could use a name change.