Greetings from en route to Marjah. I’m out in Afghanistan for a spell to do some reporting for the magazine. I thought I would file some posts as I go along, while trying to avoid subjects that might overlap with my prospective print piece—hard to sort out how to do that with precision, but I’ll try.

To reach Kabul and beyond I hitched a ride with the press pool accompanying Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen, who is in Afghanistan for about forty-eight hours. The pool includes me, two old Washington Post colleagues, Karen DeYoung and David Ignatius, as well as Joe Klein of Time, Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times, and four or five others. It’s kind of a Bucket List trip for aging national-security reporters. I’ll peel off from the pool tomorrow and report the rest of the way on my own, but for now I’m enjoying a quick inside-the-wire tour.

I’m typing this from the cargo hold of a V-22 Osprey, that Star Wars-looking hybrid of jet and helicopter. Ignatius remarked as we boarded that it looked like an aircraft designed by a congressional committee. You can take off like an airplane or lift off like a helicopter. We rolled down the runway with the rear ramp lowered. A gunner strapped to the fuselage held down his position on a machine gun, trying not to let the G’s pull him down the ramp to dangle in the sky. We let off a few missile-deflecting flares as we lifted into Stinger altitude over Kabul.

The Chairman’s traveling party also includes a U.S.O. contingent. Our flight from Andrews bore Rose McGowan, of the TV show “Charmed.” Her brother is a fighter pilot and although she had never done anything like this, she seemed enthusiastic about it. She was even missing her brother’s wedding to make the trip and meet the troops. (Times are changing and we New Yorker writers now happily file celebrity news updates online.) Another aircraft carried James Gandolfini, star of “The Sopranos.” I was hoping to find him at the elders shura in Marjah, briefing COIN doctrine: “Believe me, we’re gonna take care of you people.”

A little later: As it happened, Mullen was on his own, starpower-wise. Marjah is a flat, green expanse of irrigated land. The poppy harvest is just a few weeks away. Our V-22s descended in a wheat field. The ramp came down and for as far as the eye could see was poppy in near-bloom—we seemed to have found the only wheat field in town. We stumbled away through ditches, found a joint Marine-Afghan base in the district center, and proceeded to a beige gauze tent, where Mullen sat cross-legged on a carpet. A succession of Marine and Afghan officers then stood before makeshift maps and outdid themselves in enunciating the precepts of counterinsurgency doctrine and pronouncing confidence in its success.

Their fact reporting did not seem to justify an immediately triumphal outlook, however. The local population still faces Taliban intimidation, the Helmand governor reported, in reply to Mullen’s questions. The local cell phone company is receiving threats and struggling with service. The markets are open but not functioning as well as the Marines would like. It’s not clear what will be done about the poppy harvest, or who will benefit from it.

The offensive here only began forty-five days ago. This is hardcore Taliban country where many locals have been collaborators for years in a Taliban-supervised, opium-based, efficiently taxed economy. Already the Taliban have resurfaced from within the local population, according to analysts involved in the Marine operations—probably an indication of the extent to which the Taliban have leveraged their way into the opium economy in recent years. Poppy used to be sold at Marjah’s bazaars at harvest times like this. Now farmers either have to eat sunk costs or risk attempting to market someplace else, where they have less protection. The Taliban use this predicament to press their messaging. They also sow local roads with enough I.E.D.’s to keep government officials at home and to make clear that the territory is still contested. The resistance to the American offensive here, then, has so far been significant, if hardly overwhelming. Even successful counterinsurgency takes time and proceeds in zig-zags. It seems early to judge this chapter.

Nonetheless, the Helmand governor, Gulab Mangal, knows his brief. He wore a turban made from fashionable black cloth with white stripes, as well as designer glasses with tinted lenses. “My main goal,” he said, standing before Admiral Mullen, “is to win the people—to conquer their hearts.”

About thirty local elders then filed in to sit with Mullen and participate in a mini-shura. “Our focus is principally on you and your families…We greatly regret each loss of life. This is your country, your province, your people…it is really for you to lead.”

A shura delegate in a blue-grey robe stood and read out from notes scribbled on lined white paper. He asked for security, a better medical clinic, female medical workers, roads, and agricultural support. He mentioned that houses in town had been damaged in the recent fighting.

Mullen’s turn came again. He agreed that education, health, and agriculture were important priorities. He said that international forces were seized by a sense of urgency, and yet that patience was also required. He emphasized the importance of the Afghan government’s performance. “I didn’t come here today with any magic formula,” he said.