"Miss You Like Hell" was written by Elton Adams while he served his country in Afghanistan. This video is dedicated to all of our past and present allied soldiers and their spouses. Special thanks to Dave Murphy and Thankasoldier.net for his second to none support for soldiers, you rock Dave.
The medical staff never stopped working. I didn’t even get a chance to talk with Major Lucy Lehker because she was so focused on the Canadian soldier, who was the only truly critical patient. When the Canadian soldier began to wake up, Lucy caressed his head, and whispered to him where he was, how he got there, who she is, and what his injuries were.Yon calls this dispatch "Whispers." Read the whole report and pray for our troops at war as well as all the nations fighting with us in the international war on terror.
| This Is Getting Embarrassing... |
| Posted by: Meredith Jessup at 12:12 PM |
| First this... |
The story today on military.com is worth linking just for the photo alone, a 4th Infantry Division G.I. caught in mid-air leaping into a muddy canal ditch to escape fire from the Taliban in the hills above an Afghan village.The atmosphere was tense. An attack was expected. Back at the ruined clinic, the squad's Afghan translator had asked if this journalist had a mobile phone. "You should call your loved ones now to say that you care about them. I'm telling you, the walk home from here is not a joke," he said with a nervous smile.
As they left Qatar Kala, with U.S. helicopters buzzing overhead, Goodman split his men into two squads, one along the riverbed and one in an irrigation canal on higher ground.
About 500 yards outside the village gunfire whistled down from the eastern mountainside.
Soldiers dived stomach-down. The rushing canal water soaked boots and uniforms and jammed at least one weapon as Soldiers got up to shoot back...
Just another day on the job for our soldiers. Say a prayer for all the men and women in harm's way, defending our freedom daily around the world.Gradually the Soldiers made it to safety. The firefight had lasted about four hours. The entire operation, from dawn until the return to base, went on for about seven hours.
The Soldiers were met in front of the bazaar of a friendly village by troops in military vehicles who gave them bottled water. They were caked in drying mud but with no casualties except for two sprained ankles.
Then they headed back to their outpost, which is named Honaker Miracle after two U.S. infantrymen, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Honaker and Pfc. Joseph Miracle, killed in Afghanistan in 2007.
The platoon was later told by its company command that reports suggested up to five Taliban were killed in Tuesday's fighting.
Bill Kristol at The Weekly Standard Blog gives us an update on the world's longest dither as President Obama and his "military experts" continue "developing a new strategy" for the war in Aghanistan. Meanwhile, Gen. McChrystal and the troops continue the fight short-handed.The McChrystal review was done by August 1st. It is now the end of October.
According to today's Washington Post ("Obama seeking options on forces; President looks to send fewer additional troops"), we'll get a decision by the end of November. That's four months. And it's evident that the review at this point is being driven entirely by White House political concerns. 148 American soldiers have died while the president holds seminars.
It's really outrageous.
There are, though, comical aspects to the Post story.
One is that Army chief of staff George Casey, a stubborn opponent of the Iraq surge at the end of 2006, is using this excuse to oppose an Afghanistan surge: "The Army is particularly concerned that soldiers who spend less than 18 months at home between combat tours do not have enough time to train for high-intensity tank warfare."
Just where are we going to fight that kind of war in the very near future?
Another is this: "But opinion among members of Obama's national security team is divided, and he now appears to be seeking a compromise solution that would satisfy both his military and civilian advisers."
Huh? Who are those "civilian advisers?" Secretary of Defense Gates is with Generals McChrystal and Petraeus, and (I gather) so too are Secretary of State Clinton and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke -- all the "civilian advisers" who have real responsibility for the situation. But Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel have political concerns -- so Obama is trying to find a "compromise" that would "satisfy" them too.
Sometimes, in political and public policy, compromise is a good thing. But it's not a way to win a war. Especially when the "compromise" is between what your own military commander judges, based on an extensive review, he needs, and what your political hacks want.
You didn't think Obama was going to interrupt his golf game to make a decision, did you?
You might be a redneck if your mama can cuss out a cop without taking the cigarette outa her mouth ... and you might be a President dithering endlessly about whether to send needed troops to fight the war in Aghanistan if even a Washington Post columnist says we need more troops there.So what should Obama do? I think he should add enough troops to continue the mission he endorsed in March to "reverse the Taliban's gains" and improve security in Afghanistan's population centers. I don't know whether the right number is the roughly 40,000 that Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recommended, but it should be the minimum number necessary. The additional troops will come at a steep political price, at home and abroad.Sir Charles Krauthammer shares an old Soviet joke to characterize Obama's dithering strategy.
WASHINGTON -- Old Soviet joke:
Moscow, 1953. Stalin calls in Khrushchev.
"Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble."
A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: "Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe."
A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: "Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe."
Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: "Prepare three envelopes."
In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame-Bush free passes before the gig is up. By my calculation, Obama has already burned through a good 49. Is there anything he hasn't blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad -- everything but swine flu.
It's as if Obama's presidency hasn't really started. He's still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to "long years of drift" in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan.
Krauthammer also sums up Obama's choices on Afghanistan as being remarkably similar to the right decision that his much-hated predecessor President George W. Bush made on Iraq.
In Iraq, the heavy footprint -- also known as the surge -- dramatically reversed the fortunes of war. In Afghanistan, where it took longer for the Taliban to regroup, the failure of the light footprint did not become evident until more recently when an uneasy stalemate began to deteriorate into steady Taliban advances.
That's where we are now in Afghanistan. The logic of a true counterinsurgency strategy there is that whatever resentment a troop surge might occasion pales in comparison with the continued demoralization of any potential anti-Taliban elements unless they receive serious and immediate protection from U.S.-NATO forces.
In other words, Obama is facing the same decision on Afghanistan that Bush faced in late 2006 in deciding to surge in Iraq.
In both places, the deterioration of the military situation was not the result of "drift," but of considered policies that seemed reasonable, cautious and culturally sensitive at the time, but ultimately turned out to be wrong.
Which is evidently what Obama now thinks of the policy choice he made on March 27.
He is to be commended for reconsidering. But it is time he acted like a president and decided. Afghanistan is his. He's used up his envelopes.
The "heavy footprint vs. light footprint" debate is essentially the Pentagon, the generals in charge of our troops and even Defense Sec. Bill Gates vs. "Generals" John Kerry and Joe Biden.
Rich Lowry at National Review calls it the City Mouse, Country Mouse Strategy.
Reading the tea leaves, it appears that defense, state, and the intelligence community has concluded that the Taliban is dangerous and it can't be fought effectively without something like McChrystal's 40,000 troops. The politicos, though, seem to want to turn the process on its head. The original idea was to come up with the strategy and ends first, then decide on what troop levels are necessary. The political aides seemingly want to come up with the most politically palatable troop number — say splitting the difference at 20,000 — and then ask what strategy can be supported with that number. The White House has given the impression of wanting to rig the process against McChrystal, but of failing as the facts — reflected in the positions of defense, et. al — lean the other way.
God save our nation and especially our troops in harm's way while Obama endlessly dithers.
Can Obama play hardball with Iran and Russia? Robert Kagan asks the question in the WaPo this morning and gives us a scorecard on how well our Diplomatic Leader is doing thus far. It don't take a rocket surgeon to know the score on that as Obama is Oh-fer-zip.These are vexed times. The country is at war on two fronts. Rogue states are edging toward acquiring strategic nuclear weaponry. We have been through a very serious recession from which we may not emerge into the bright morn of economic health for years. The dollar is frail. The future of national health care, finance and corporate governance is in doubt. Yet that is not all. Over at The New York Times, an issue that continues to torment the bien-pensants is ... Well, let me quote the first sentence of the front-page tocsin that began the controversy Oct. 25: "Does the White House feel like a frat house?"Seriously. And speaking of females, one of my feminine heroes, young Hannah Giles, asks a few vexing questions for the so-called mainstream media, who is still studiously ignoring the ACORN scandal she exposed on camera. Here's just a couple of her "suggestions" to the media.
The proximate cause for this troubling query was that President Barack Obama had hosted "a high-level basketball game with no female players."
• Baltimore- Why no mention of the toddlers that were in the room while James and I were being counseled on how to manage our underage prostitution ring?
• San Bernardino- The content of this video was largely ignored except for the part where ACORN worker Tresa Kaelke mentions she shot her husband. What about when she told us not to educate our sex-slaves because they won’t want to work for us? Or when we talked about making money off of clients who would physically abuse the girls? What about the whole transport-the-girls-in-a-school-bus-to-avoid-suspicion discussion?
I'd like to say more, but I gotta go to work. God save our nation and our troops because Obama won't, can't and apparently don't even have a clue how to, even if he wanted to. And he don't.
Like Jeff Foxworthy's signs that you might be a redneck, you might be "dithering" while Afghanistan burns if even the Europeans are more committed to that war than Obama is. Jamie Fly at The Weekly Standard blog points out this absurdity in NATO Defense Ministers and UN Official Back McChrystal Before Obama Now, just as the president is publicly agonizing over what the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan should be, some European leaders seem willing to consider making increased commitments to Afghanistan. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is considering increasing the size of the German contingent in the country when the deployment’s mandate is renewed later this year, something that is nothing short of amazing given how publicly unpopular the German presence in Afghanistan is. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last week that he was sending an additional 500 troops to the country.These increased commitments appear to be based on a recognition that a properly resourced counterinsurgency effort is the only way to achieve success in Afghanistan. The New York Times reported yesterday that “NATO defense ministers gave their broad endorsement Friday to the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.” Kai Eide, the UN special representative for Afghanistan attended the meeting and said “additional troops are required,” also telling the defense ministers that “this cannot be a U.S.-only enterprise.”
...The White House took offense at Vice President Cheney’s statement this week that the president was “dithering” on Afghanistan. Friday’s NATO defense ministerial should put this issue to rest -- even the Europeans have acted with more fortitude than our president.
Thank God for Dick Cheney and Fox News. They keep pointing out the obvious truths about our "dithering" President. Sooner or later, the voters will realize the emperor has no clothes. I'm just praying a miracle will happen and Obama will finally do the right thing and not leave our troops in Afghanistan twisting slowly in the winds of defeat.
Never thought I'd look back fondly at the Presidential administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. The much-maligned LBJ was a crook who started stealing elections when he ran for class president of his junior college back in Texas and refined his technique over the years but never changed.As President Obama and his war cabinet deliberate a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, Americans are evenly and deeply divided over whether he should send 40,000 more troops there, and public approval of the president's handling of the situation has tumbled, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.Obama's "war cabinet"? What a crock. You have a grand total of one cabinet member, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has the stones to stand up for our military and urge the President to support the war in Afghanistan and give the general Obama handpicked and put in charge, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the surge in troops he has asked for. The rest of the cabinet is lined up solidly behind White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel advising Obama to leave the troops slowly twisting in the wind while he abandons the war on terror as politically inexpedient.
When I turned on the news this morning to digest with my eggs and sausage, it's a good thing I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I heard that President Barack Hussein Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. WTF? He had been in office a grand total of two weeks when the nominees list for this year's peace prize was drawn up by the Nobel committee. And what had he accomplished toward world peace in those first two weeks? About exactly what he has accomplished since on any goal. Nada. Nuthin'. Zip. So far, Obama's legacy is a big fat zero.Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change.Just what did Jimmy Carter do for world peace? Well he got Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat to sit down for "peace talks" with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for which that odd trio won the 1994 Nobel peace prize. And of course, those historic talks hosted by President Jimmy Carter resulted in peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, didn't they? Well let's not quibble over details like actual peace breaking out.
Not only is this award INCREDIBLY premature since Obama has only been in office just over nine months, but also pretty inappropriate. Teddy Roosevelt ended the Russo-Japanese War and received the prize, and Obama... what? Gave a speech in Cairo?Wesley Pruden, who penned this morning's column in advance of the Obama Nobel prize announcement, is yet quite accurate in describing the "peace accomplishments" on the world scene thus far by our rookie president, whose trademark "dithering" continues on a host of pressing world peace matters, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Eastern Europe.
The cruel world is closing in on Barack Obama. Springfield was never like this. The president can only look back with yearning for the days when he was the star of the state legislature, where a legislator's only concern is who's going to pick up the tab for drinks and supper.
His dithering time in the big new world is limited by events, which occur to a timetable that mere man, even a minor-league messiah, cannot control.
The White House insists that the president is hard at work on what to do about Afghanistan, and whether to send more troops to fuel a "surge" like the surge that prevented a collapse of the West's attempt to rescue Iraq from barbarism and restore a fragile semblance of civilization. The brave young Americans put in harm's way in that godforsaken corner of the world often feel abandoned in a hopeless cause, so the president should feel the pressure to act, and quickly.
But the problem is "multilayered," his spokesman says. Translated into real English, that means "he hasn't yet figured out which layer of public opinion to appease, and which layer to disappoint." He'll do something as soon as he figures out which disappointed layer would squeak loudest and scream longest.
The Pakistanis occupy still another layer. The president is looking for a way to motivate an ally that doesn't want to be motivated. Money is usually the great motivator, and the administration proposes to send the generals who run Pakistan $7.5 billion in aid over the next five years, to, er, ah, ummmm, uh, well, it's not clear what, exactly. They'll think of something. The generals want to make sure the money arrives in Pakistan with no strings attached. It's not as if we're talking about real money.
Still another layer is the arsenal of nuclear weapons the Paks already have, and a layer beyond that is the nuclear weapon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in neighboring Iran is about to have, unless the president gets out of the way and lets the Israelis resolve the dilemma. This would free him to figure out a way to abandon Israel to the terrorists without making noise that would drown out the speech he would make as a consolation prize for the Jews and their Christian allies. He has a useful precedent, having recently thrown the Poles and Czechs under his famous bus (joining his grandmother), to appease the Russians angered by the prospect of a NATO missile base in Poland and the Czech Republic.
On another front, the dollar is shrinking so fast - more than 11 percent over the past few months - that it might disappear before the rest of the world abandons it as the reserve currency. But the most dangerous layer of presidential concerns, if you believe certain European descendants of Chicken Little, is what to do about global warming.
So there you have it in Pruden's insightful analysis, the accomplishments on the world scene of our Dither-In-Chief during his term in office thus far.
Meanwhile, back on the dithering front, the White House has decided the President is just too busy right now for General McChrystal, our top commander in Afghanistan, to come to Washington to brief his staff and Congress. So they put McChrystal on hold for a while. Again.
The White House has told the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan to delay a planned trip here Friday to brief President Obama and his senior advisers on his recommendation for a major troop increase.
Officials had hoped to have Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and what national security adviser James L. Jones called "all the key players" speak to Obama in person by the end of this week, leading to final deliberations over a forward strategy.
But "we're not finished," Jones said Thursday, and meetings may extend beyond next week. When the White House is ready, he said, McChrystal -- along with the U.S. ambassadors to Afghanistan and Pakistan -- will fly to Washington so that the three "can meet with the president before a decision is made."
Well that's magnanimous of Obama, to allow McChrystal to come to Washington and meet with him "before a decision is made." Thus far, our busy President has has exactly one 25-minute conversation face-to-face with the top commander in Afghanistan while he has been busily crafting a "new strategy" for the war in Afghanistan. And when he's finished crafting that new strategy, he will allow McChrystal another brief photo-op in the White House before announcing his new strategy, which has been realistically described as the "cut and walk" plan for the war, which is somewhere halfway between "cut and run" and sending troops to actually win the war.
The Democratic chairmen of several key committees overseeing war policy, including the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, say they back the military's request for a troop buildup in Afghanistan - despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's stance that Congress will not support deploying more U.S. forces.
At a White House meeting this week, participants said about half of the chairmen from the dozen House and Senate panels involved in military issues told President Obama that they supported ordering more troops to Afghanistan.
"A number of us commented that we don't believe you can prevail with a counterterrorism plan alone. You have to have a more comprehensive strategy," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat and chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who attended the meeting.
Perhaps there is some sanity in the real world after all, vs. the insanity of Nobel Peace Prize alternate universe logic. I for one pray for our troops and for victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a famous general said, in war there is no substitute for victory.
Oops. I wasn't supposed to quote General MacArthur. He's the leftwingnuts' current example of a bad general as they compare McChrystal to President Harry Truman's firing of MacArthur.
After all, what did MacArthur accomplish, besides leading our troops to victory in the Pacific Theater of World War II and then returning to do it again on the battlefields of Korea?
The first presidential administration in the history of our republic with neither standard bearer having served a day in military service is living up to its billing. Military "expert" VP Joe Biden offers a "new strategy" for the war in Aghanistan as the Obama administration turns on its nasty political attack machine Chicago-style politics to slime General McChrystal.
ANOTHER day, another double standard from the Obama White House. This one involves the nasty ef fort to discredit and muz zle Gen. Stanley McChrystal, whose sin was to present his commander in chief with an inconvenient answer about Afghanistan.
The president appointed McChrystal and ordered him to assess the war and develop a plan to rescue the mission. The result -- a call for an increase of 40,000 troops or face defeat -- apparently was not what Obama wanted to hear.
Bingo. In a flash, McChrystal found himself on the business end of a political attack machine. The president's liberal allies struck first, and then White House officials, hiding behind anonymous quotes, heaped scorn on the commander's judgment in The Washington Post.
The heavy hitters followed with their whacks at the piñata, with National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates both telling McChrystal to button his lip. They gave this advice on television, even as they demanded that he give his advice in private.
Tony Blankley at The Washington Times (the only real paper left standing in D.C.) outlines the options the Obama administration is facing on the war in Afghanistan and sums up thusly:
The president has three choices: (1) Cut and run, (2) cut and walk or (3) stay and fight with enough troops. Either Option No. 1 or No. 3 may be justifiable based on hard-headed thinking. No. 2 is an evasion of reality and would sinfully sacrifice American troops for no good purpose.Since Obama has already publicly ruled out cut and run, saying he will not abandon the fight, it's down to "cut and walk" or "stay and fight." I hate to say it, but option two will soon be chosen. Our rookie president has already shown he ain't got enough guts to string a fiddle when it comes to doing anything that will alienate the lunatic leftwingnuts, which is his one solid constituency.
So that rules out "stay and fight," meaning he'll do some halfway measure that will start the decline into a slow defeat as our troops in Afghanistan are left slowly twisting in the wind.
In the meantime, Obama's adoring masses (AKA the mainstream media and other assorted leftwingnuts) carry on with the character assassination of General McChrystal, comparing him to McArthur in Korea. Townhall.com columnist Douglas MacKinnon gives us the dirty lowdown.
Meanwhile, over in the sandbox, our troops soldier on and the countdown continues since General McChrystal made his request for more boots on the ground, Meredith Jessup notes.Simply because he spoke out in the best interests of his troops and our nation, the liberal intelligentsia, certain White House aides and some Democrat Members of Congress are trying to discredit and disparage General Stan McChrystal as fast as yellow journalism will allow.
What sin did this highly decorated patriot commit? As commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, he dared to publicly speak his mind in the age of Obama. For that, those who worship at the feet of the Oracle of the Oval Office have told the General to “shut up,” have referred to him as “General MacArthur,” and have called for him to be drummed out of the military.
Today marks 39 days since U.S. and NATO General Stanley McChrystal delivered his request for more troops to President Obama. In his report, McChrystal warns the president of "mission failure" if current troop levels in Afghanistan remain unchanged.While the slime attack on McChrystal carries on, President Obama is voting "present" on the war in Afghanistan. I guess I should be thankful he hasn't yet announced his "cut and walk" plan. God save our nation and protect our troops in harm's way. How many days to 2012?
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a confidential report that without additional forces, the war against insurgents there will end in failure, The Washington Post reported Monday.
McChrystal's grim assessment of the war was published on the Post's Web site, with some portions withheld at the government's request.
"Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall effort is deteriorating," McChrystal wrote in his summary.
The report was sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates in August and is now under review by President Barack Obama, who is trying to decide whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
While asking for more troops, McChrystal also pointed out "the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy." The U.S. needs to interact better with the Afghan people, McChrystal said, and better organize its efforts with NATO allies.
The Pentagon and the White House are awaiting a separate, more detailed request for additional troops and resources. Media reports Friday and Saturday said McChrystal has finished it but was told to pocket it, partly because of the charged politics surrounding the decision. McChrystal's senior spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the report is not complete.
"The resource request is being finalized and will be sent forward to the chain of command at some point in the near future," Smith said from Afghanistan.
Obama denied asking McChrystal to sit on the request, but he gave no deadline for making a decision about whether to send more Americans into harm's way.
Obama said in a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday that he will not allow politics to govern his decision. He left little doubt he is re-evaluating whether more forces will do any good.
"The first question is, 'Are we doing the right thing?'" Obama said. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"
Lemme see if I got this straight. The general in charge has sent the Prez a report outlining his strategy and calling for more troops. But the Prez, whose strategic expertise starts and ends with being a community organizer in Chicago, has no military experience at all and has never run nothing but his mouth, this idiot who is now our Commander-in-Chief isn't sure if trying to win the war in Aghanistan is "the right thing?" He's still trying to determine "the right strategy?"
God help us. Our troops are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FBI is arresting terrorists in New York and Colorado and meanwhile what is Obama doing? Investigating the CIA because they poured some water up the noses of three terrorists responsible for 9/11.
Pardon the hell out of me if I'm not too optimistic about the future of our failing government.
And permit me to outline the winning strategy for all wars since the beginning of time, as outlined by a Confederate general. The winning strategy is to "git thar fustest with the mostest."
KABUL -- British commandos freed a New York Times reporter early Wednesday from Taliban captives who kidnapped him over the weekend in northern Afghanistan, but one of the commandos and a Times' translator were killed in the rescue, officials said.
Reporter Stephen Farrell was taken hostage along with his translator in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday. German commanders had ordered U.S. jets to drop bombs on two hijacked fuel tankers, causing a number of civilian casualties, and reporters traveled to the area to cover the story.
So what about those "civilian casualties" claimed by the Taliban? Same old lie told once again.
Here's the facts about that from The Weekly Standard blog by Ulf Gartzke.
Friday’s deadly air strike on two Taliban-hijacked tanker trucks, which was called in by German Bundeswehr forces and carried out by USAF fighter jets, has prompted a sudden barrage of domestic and international criticism vis-Ã -vis Berlin’s handling of this particular incident and, by implication, the Afghan mission in general. At a press conference in Berlin Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was unusually blunt in hitting back at her critics -– including key NATO allies like the United States and France –- and made it clear that she opposes making premature judgments and jumping to conclusions before all results of the on-going military investigation into potential civilian casualties, etc. are known. Just to recap, the Bundeswehr had called in the night-time air strikes after a source said that the Taliban would use the hijacked tankers in suicide attack on the nearby German military base in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz region.
In an interesting development, SPIEGEL Online just published an interview with Kunduz governor Mohammed Omar who strongly defended the Bundeswehr’s actions. Governor Omar singled out the German top commander in Kunduz, Col. Georg Klein, by stating that he “made the right decision at the right time and acted in a very level-headed way” when calling in the U.S. airstrike.
Omar visited the German military base in Kunduz on Monday. He said he didn’t know how many civilians were killed in the air strike. “But the Germans have the support of the population. We didn’t receive any of the complaints one usually gets in cases where civilians are killed.”
Eyewitnesses said there were 60 armed Taliban on the scene along with 15 to 20 other people. “But at half past two at night, no normal civilians would dare to go out in this area, which is more than four kilometers from the nearest village,” said Omar.
Anyone in the vicinity of the fuel tankers must have been criminal or a supporter of the Taliban, he said. The US criticism of the attack appeared to be a gut reaction, he added.
War correspondent Michael Yon, the Ernie Pyle of our day, reports good news and bad news from the frontlines of the war on terror.The war in Iraq has ended. Violent elements remain, but they no longer threaten the very fabric of Iraq. The Iraqi Army, police and government continue to outpace the elements that would prefer to see Iraq in chaos. Iraq is no longer an enemy. There is no reason for us to ever shoot at each other again.That's the good news. Now the bad news from Yon, who always tells it just like it is.
But Afghanistan is a different story. I write these words from Kandahar, in the south. This war here is just getting started. Likely we will see severe fighting kicking off by about April of 2009. Iraq is on the mend, but victory in Afghanistan is very much in question.In Part Two of Yon's report on the war in Afghanistan, he writes about a little-known element of the coalition forces, Lithuanian Special Forces.
While Americans sleep tight in their beds, this time of year U.S. soldiers sit shivering through the frigid, crystal clear nights at remote outposts in places most of us have never heard of and will never see.
Often they head out into the enveloping darkness, to hunt down and destroy terrorists, who continue to kill innocent Afghans, Americans, Aussies, Balinese, Brits, Indians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Spanish ... in short, anyone who opposes their violent tyranny. Their greatest weapons are ignorance and terror. Witness the latest unprovoked attack on our friends in India.
These enemies have no wish to reconcile with their fellow countrymen, or compromise in any way that would diminish their control of the lives of the ordinary Afghans who don't share their feral vision of life. They throw acid in the faces of little girls whose only crime is that they go to school. So we must continue to send our toughest men to confront them eye to eye, while performing the difficult balancing act of not alienating those who intend us no harm. This is particularly difficult in Afghanistan, a proud nation with a deep tradition of antipathy toward outsiders - even those who are here to help, though I am finding many Afghans clearly do not want us to leave.
The hard work is especially difficult when our troops are spread perilously thin. Over the last nearly two weeks I've spent time with teams whose nearest ground support is too far away, and too small anyway, to help them when they get into serious trouble, which happens all the time.
Some of these groups are too far out for helicopters to reach within any reasonable amount of time, and so their only choice often is "CAS," or Close Air Support: jets with bombs. Sadly, despite the extreme precautions I have seen our people taking in Iraq and now Afghanistan, we are bound to make some mistakes, which the enemy exploits to full potential. In fact, there are reports that I believe credible that the enemy is actively trying to bait us into bombing innocent people. Such is the savagery of the Taliban and associated armed opposition groups (AOGs).
U.S. and Afghan soldiers in Zabul Province give high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces, who like to ride these captured Taliban motorbikes (photo at top) to sneak up on, and chase Taliban fighters. The "LithSof" are on their way to becoming living legends: Both Afghans and Americans report that the Taliban are afraid of the Lithuanians. Stories about them are filled with dangerous escapades and humor.Try to get that mental image out of your head, Lithuanian soldiers riding Taliban motorcycles wearing nothing but body armor and weapons.
Americans say that the Lithuanians are sort of a weaponized version of Borat, who think nothing of sauntering around a base in nothing but flip-flops and underwear. "They look like mountain men. They never shave, sometimes don't bathe, and often roll out the gate wearing nothing but body armor and weapons. Not even a t-shirt," an American soldier told me. The Lithuanians may be a little bit nuts, but the Americans love to have them around because Lithuanians love to fight, and when you need backup, you can count on them. That contrasts starkly with many of the NATO "partners."
Maybe when your country spends almost a half-century with the Soviet boot on its neck, its first generation of free soldiers know what freedom is worth - and that you sometimes have to fight for it.
We're probably remembering our veterans with a bit more emotion this year than on previous Veterans Days, which I guess is always the case when America observes the holiday at a time when our men and women of the Armed Forces are engaged in combat.
At the Veterans Day observance at the Richmond County Veteran's Memorial Park in Rockingham on Friday, speaker Hugh Lee, a World War II veteran, reminded us of the Americans and our allies locked in combat in Afghanistan with a new type of enemy, the forces of terrorism.
But though this is a different type of war than any we've ever fought before, at core it comes down to the same bottom line - men and women have to go into harm's way to stop Osama bin Laden and his terrorists, just as they did to stop Hitler and Tojo 60 years ago.
Five WWII veterans were honored at the dinner at VFW Post 4203 with high school diplomas they never received when they went off to war so long ago. I'll have to agree with Tom Brokaw on this one point if nothing else, the WWII vets may well have been "The Greatest Generation," which is what he titled his book on that era.
But as I strolled through the Veteran's Memorial Park and looked at the monuments to WWII, Korean and Vietnam War veterans, my own thoughts went back to one of our Vietnam vets who gave all.
Lonnie Hoopaugh from Norman was a childhood friend, a classmate of mine through the 12th grade. I remember the first day of the first grade - back before they had kindergarten - and the teacher asked how many of us knew the alphabet already, pointing to the strange characters displayed at the top of the blackboard.
I didn't even know what the alphabet was, much less know its characters, and neither did anybody else in the class. But Lonnie raised his hand. The teacher only smiled and didn't ask him to recite the alphabet. If she had, I don't know what Lonnie would have said.
But one thing Lonnie never was as long as I knew him was bashful.
He was a little guy, short as a Banty rooster, which may have been why he made up for his lack of stature with a boldness and swagger. And that's at least one reason Lonnie is no longer with us. His older brother Wade, who still lives in Norman, told me in recent years that in 1968, Lonnie only had a little over a year left in his hitch in the Navy to serve and was stationed on a ship on the West Coast where he could have stayed and avoided the Vietnam War.
But Lonnie volunteered for the Navy's most dangerous duty, riverboat patrols in Vietnam. The "Brown Water Navy" as it was called, had the highest casualty percentage of any unit in that war, with 70 percent of its members either wounded or killed in Vietnam.
In January 1969, I had just arrived in Vietnam aboard the USS Mullinnix, DD-944, a destroyer, to begin a tour of gunline duty in support of our troops inland. I didn't know it until I returned to the states, but that was the month Lonnie was wounded and killed.
Lonnie was manning a .50 caliber machine gun on the fantail of his riverboat when a B40 rocket came arcing in and landed at his feet. He was evacuated by helicopter, but later died of his wounds.
Wade told me he has often asked himself over the years: Why did Lonnie die? Why did he volunteer to fight in our most unpopular war? The Vietnam War is still regarded as something far lesser than the conflicts that preceded and followed it, mainly because it was the first war America lost and hopefully the only one we ever lose.
If we learned nothing else from Vietnam, we learned how not to fight a war. We learned that Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara shouldn't have been picking targets and setting rules of engagement in Washington, D.C., while men and women were dying in Vietnam.
Civilian authority over the military is indeed part of our constitution, but I pray LBJ will be the last commander-in-chief who handcuffs our military by making such critical decisions for them.
So far, President George W. Bush is following the lead of his father in the Persian Gulf War, letting the military do the fighting while he does the leading. If we can remember the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam, perhaps there will never be another war like it.
Michael Yon is back at war, this time in Afghanistan, and just like he did in Iraq, he’s not in the rear with the gear, he’s up front with the troops. Yon reported as an independent correspondent in Iraq as long as that war remained “hot” but with victory at hand there, he’s gone to “The Forgotten War.” He files the second in a 3-part series from a British base in a cornfield, called Death in the Corn. The ambush was set, but “Terry” Taliban didn’t step into it. The most successful hunters are not the ones who bag something every time, but the ones who hunt all the time, and 2 Para has been hunting the most dangerous prey. The soldiers of C-co 2 Para are not sure how many they’ve killed in the past five months, but the estimates are around 200, and during the days I spent with them, their average daily kill would put them well over that number.
In part 2 of a series, Yon goes on a foot patrol with British Army troops deep in “Terry” Taliban country in Afghanistan and when they occupy an abandoned mud fort, the former Green Beret does what any good soldier does when has a chance. He takes a nap.
There was some heavy shooting far in front of us that abated within minutes, and I fell back asleep in the last slivers of shade. Then a very sharp firefight broke out at the forward positions. Again, Lima 1-1 was not involved, but intelligence came in that Taliban might be heading in our direction, although no one knew if they were aware of our position. Probably they did know, because two boys rode by on a donkey, and there were other compounds nearby where we could hear dogs barking and kids playing. Some of the dogs here are massive and look like Cujo.
I tried to fall back asleep, but the shade was evaporating as the sun rose, and every time sweet dreams started, they were interrupted by a firefight, so I climbed down the precarious ladder to sit with Dr. Lalani. Soldiers have great respect for medical doctors who can justifiably stay on base, but instead push into combat. If the doctor is there during those first minutes after a soldier is wounded, there is a far greater chance of survival.
At about 1106, the enemy initiated contact on one of the forward positions. It was so loud that I thought our guys were firing from the roof. Rockets were blasting away. About 40 seconds after contact, the 81mm mortars were firing straight over our heads and crashing down on enemy positions about a klick to our front. Thousands of rounds were being fired, though the guns all around me were silent.
The elements up front were fighting while I just listened to the gunfire and explosions while eating one of the MREs the Danes had given me. Up front in the fight, Lance Corporal Alex Fraenzel was hauling a Javelin missile. Fraenzel and Private Richard Lloyd ran forward. While Fraenzel set up for the shot, Lloyd began firing his SA-80 rifle into suspected enemy positions to provide cover.
Yon ends his second report in the series “Death in the Corn” with a promise of even more lively action to come in the third report.
The patrol returned to Gibraltar, not knowing how many Taliban they had killed, if any. But tomorrow they would go out hunting again. This time, they would bag their limit.
A t-shirt worn by one of the British troops in Afghanistan says plainly that their business is killing Taliban -- and business is good.The soldiers are living like animals at a little rat’s nest called FOB Gibraltar. They call it “Gib.” Named after the lynchpin of British naval dominance in the Mediterranean, this cluster of mud huts in the middle of hostile territory is more like Fort Apache, Afghanistan. The British soldiers from C-Company 2 Para live in ugly conditions, fight just about every day, and morale is the best I have seen probably anywhere.Say a prayer for Michael and the troops, ours and our allies, in the never-ending war on terror.
Though there are significant cultural and tribal differences between Afghanistan and Iraq -- the military/security situation in Afghanistan is similar to what it was in Mesopotamia 2 1/2 years ago -- they are equally "winnable" if we do the right things. Some repairs will take time, but these are needed urgently:--Inform both the Pakistani and Iranian governments that insurgent cross-border operations will not be tolerated and that if Taliban/terror bases on their territories are not closed, they will be attacked.
--Commence building paved roads throughout all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, not just in urban areas. Such projects will generate tens of thousands of jobs, create lasting infrastructure, reduce casualties from IEDs and mines, and show the Afghan people that their government cares about them.
--Stop illicit drug production from the top down, not the bottom up. Arrest and prosecute the kingpins, and then go for eradication and crop replacement. It worked in Colombia, and it can work in Afghanistan.
--Fix the unity of command problem immediately. The NATO-ISAF command structure should be shut down. "Allied" forces that can't or won't fight should be thanked and sent home. More U.S. troops are needed desperately in Afghanistan, but unless Gen. Petraeus is given clear lines of authority to do what has to be done, the Afghan army and police never will get the equipment and training they need. He did it in Iraq. Now he needs to do it in Afghanistan.
The Afghan people don't want to be ruled by Islamic radicals. Afghan soldiers -- properly trained, equipped, led and supported -- are brave and fight well, but they can't win unless these problems are fixed. Neither they nor the young Americans serving here should have to wait for a new administration in Washington to make the necessary repairs.
If you missed the first four parts of Ollie North's reports on the Forgotten War:
Friday Aug 29, 2008
Posts
All Comments
