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| Afghanistan |
| Exclusive: Eyewitness Account of Huge Taliban Defeat |
| 2007-12-14 |
| Stephen Grey, "The Blotter" @ ABC News Afghanistan's government flag was raised Wednesday on what had been one of the biggest strongholds of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and a leading world center of heroin production. The town of about 45,000 people was secured at about 9:30 a.m. as Afghan troops, steered by British soldiers and U.S. Green Berets, drove out remnants of the Taliban resistance from Musa Qala in the opium poppy region of northern Helmand. . . . |
| Posted by:MIke |
| #35 "If they find a nice cave, pretty soon it will be full of them. If they start a fire, boom. If they don't, they can starve together." I love a happy ending, 'moose. :-D |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-12-14 23:45 |
| #34 Didn't the 101st parachute out at Campbell when they came home from Gulf War I? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-12-14 21:07 |
| #33 AMERICA AKBAR!!! |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-12-14 20:55 |
| #32 I saw the 101st drop into the airbase at Taichung in 63 or 64 (I forget...) 3 or 4 dead, lots of collapsed chutes tumbled tanks etc... I was in 3rd or 4th grade at the US school. All US citizens on the island were required by MAAG to attend as a trial run for evac. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-12-14 20:24 |
| #31 I saw a mass parachute drop at Ft Campbell as a kid (Late 50s, early 60s, not sure) during army Day celebrations, (Dad was an army Major then). Very impressive, 2000 or so airmen on the ground in 15 minutes.(Dad was more impressed that all went as planned, no colapsed chutes, no injuries). He mentioned that they really didn't use massed paratroop drops much since WWII, and this was probably the only time I'd ever see one (Right, he was) Ah, memory lane. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2007-12-14 19:28 |
| #30 This would imply an assault by parachute. CH-47 helicopters. No one is going to drop paratroopers onto contested territory. The last paradrop was in 2003 at the start of the Iraq war and that was onto a Kurd controlled airstrip. While hundreds of Taliban are believed to have been killed, two British soldiers and one American soldier lost their lives. All the deaths, however, resulted from vehicles striking mines left not, it is believed, by the Taliban but by Soviet forces in the 1980s. So were the Talibs/Pakis even trying or just so inept that the only casualties were caused by 20 years abandoned Soviet mines. Time to resurrect Hobart's Funnies? |
| Posted by: ed 2007-12-14 17:06 |
| #29 Same Edition: Gather 'ye monies and drive your enemies crazi wonderin what you goin to do with it. The Tanning Bed stratergyery. |
| Posted by: Flt. Lt. Sun Tsu 2007-12-14 16:57 |
| #28 Itn in the 33rd Edition, Appendix O. |
| Posted by: Flt. Lt. Sun Tsu 2007-12-14 16:54 |
| #27 Soon we'll be readiong about Hell on the Goat Path of Death. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-12-14 16:53 |
| #26 Think of the British longbows at Agincourt, Pappy. Air power is mainly the ability to kill people from so far away they can't hit back*... although I s'pose all those black helicopters and invisible fighters are a lot sexier than a couple of carefully shaved bits of wood with feathers attached to one end. *Ok, and drop them in to fight, and pick them up after, but again, that allows for starting and ending beyond reach. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-12-14 16:45 |
| #25 Sun Tsu didn't have airpower... Leave you enemy a chance to escape, then bomb the shit out of them. Great - now Ima gonna spend haff the nite wonderin' what he woulda done ifn he had airpower... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-12-14 16:09 |
| #24 Dittos This is the best part: "vapor trails circled in the clear blue sky over the Helmand desert as B1 and B52 bombers backed by A10 tank busters, F16s, Apache helicopters and Specter gunships were used to kill hundreds of Taliban fighters." Warms the Cockles of me Heart it does, to see so many Mid-Evil Types Force Fed Hot Steel, Tungsten and DU!! DeLicious! *Sweet* ~:) |
| Posted by: RD 2007-12-14 14:51 |
| #23 vapor trails circled in the clear blue sky over the Helmand desert as B1 and B52 bombers backed...etc I got a case of the vapors just reading that sentence. Chalk it up to my delicate sensibilities. Well done. |
| Posted by: Mark Z 2007-12-14 13:42 |
| #22 "Fled, I dont get this, the tal have no aircraft or land mobile evac, how do they flee when they are supposedly surrounded? " Mountainous terrain. You can close all the roads through which they can get supplies, thus making it untenable for them to stay, without actually having close to enough troops to monitor every foot path a nimble Pashtun can scramble over. Whether air cover can effectively stop that, I dont know, though I suspect that gets into lots of questions of cover, dwell time, etc. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2007-12-14 13:39 |
| #21 Belgian chocolates, Querent? Thus we give credit to what each does best. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-12-14 13:31 |
| #20 chocolates, get yer chocolates here... for a bag this full of enemy, i'm handing them out by the stockingful... |
| Posted by: Querent 2007-12-14 12:50 |
| #19 Yeah, you are right, just a picture of retreating troops though a corridor of air strikes made me think of it. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2007-12-14 12:41 |
| #18 My father was at Falaise Gap and Musa Qala is no Falaise Gap. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2007-12-14 12:23 |
| #17 Falaise Gap. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2007-12-14 12:15 |
| #16 Death From Above! |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2007-12-14 11:43 |
| #15 He saw very few bodies. He's just impressed with the sound and fury of modern warfare. Remember, it's the Talibs who said they has 2,000 troops. I'm betting far closer to 200. We like it when they run away, BTW. We can track them back to their hideyholes. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2007-12-14 11:36 |
| #14 You paint a nice picture, Anonymoose. But if they make it to Waziristan or Touchistan or whatever they are home safe. That's what bothers me. I like DarthVader's idea. I'd like it even better if the A10's and B2's follow them all the way into Touchistan and bomb their Touchy safe havens. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-12-14 11:34 |
| #13 DV. Great minds think alike! |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2007-12-14 11:20 |
| #12 Sun Tsu didn't have airpower... Leave you enemy a chance to escape, then bomb the shit out of them. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2007-12-14 11:19 |
| #11 Of course, after they start fleeing A-10 runs over the escape route are OK. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-12-14 11:18 |
| #10 Always leave a way out, unless you really want to see how hard a man can fight when he figures he has nothing left to lose. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-12-14 11:18 |
| #9 how do they flee when they are supposedly surrounded? This sounds like accommodation. Why no hot pursuit, aerial surveillence or outright air supremecy should disallow this context.....fishy is what this is. Read Sun Tsu some time. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-12-14 11:04 |
| #8 I suspect that we are being cagey. That is, leaving a back door open which they will use to escape, but with nothing but freezing desolation for them to escape to. That is, it would have been harder and more dangerous to try to root them out from a civilian population. But if they flee into the harsh mountains, in the dead of winter, with no food or anything else, they are facing five or six months of starvation and death without us having to fire a shot. If they find a nice cave, pretty soon it will be full of them. If they start a fire, boom. If they don't, they can starve together. Even if some of them survive, they are not going to be too damn enthusiastic about returning to the fight. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-12-14 10:37 |
| #7 Some of the commenters were positively whining. Looks like a lump of coal at Christmas for lefties who want to see the "freedom fighters" win... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-12-14 10:12 |
| #6 Crushing taliwackers is always good. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-12-14 09:53 |
| #5 Is this the journalist that Michael Yon speaks so highly of? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-12-14 09:32 |
| #4 On Monday, after days of fierce fighting -- more ferocious than NATO commanders had expected -- the Taliban called it quits and fled the town. Fled, I dont get this, the tal have no aircraft or land mobile evac, how do they flee when they are supposedly surrounded? This sounds like accommodation. Why no hot pursuit, aerial surveillence or outright air supremecy should disallow this context.....fishy is what this is. |
| Posted by: Spiny Gl 2511 2007-12-14 09:23 |
| #3 The operation was launched last Tuesday with an attack across the Helmand River by British Royal Marine commandos, a thrust from the west by light armor of the U.K. Household Cavalry Regiment; all this, however, was a feint for the main airborne landing from the north of a battalion of soldiers of Task Force Fury from the 82nd Airborne. This would imply an assault by parachute. If so, that must have been awesome, and scared the bejeebers out of the Pakis...er, uh...Taliban! |
| Posted by: Ho Chi Glort4018 2007-12-14 09:12 |
| #2 vapor trails circled in the clear blue sky over the Helmand desert as B1 and B52 bombers backed by A10 tank busters, F16s, Apache helicopters and Specter gunships were used to kill hundreds of Taliban fighters Cool! They made vapor trails out of large numbers of Taliban! Allahu akbar! |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-12-14 08:18 |
| #1 Read some of the comments. We are not the only ones who notice that the MSM is ignoring any 'good' news... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2007-12-14 08:08 |