| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| 6 US troops, 12 civilians killed in Afghan attacks |
| 2010-07-11 |
| Six US service members and a dozen civilians died in attacks in Afghanistan, adding to a summer of escalating violence against stepped-up operations by international and Afghan forces. NATO said four US service members died in the east: One as a result of small-arms fire, another by a roadside bomb, a third during an insurgent attack and the last in an accidental explosion. Two other US troops died in separate roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan. Their deaths raised to 23 the number of American troops killed so far this month in the war. Also, unknown gunmen killed 11 Pakistani Shia tribesmen in the east and at least one person died when a bomb planted on a motorbike exploded in Kandahar city in the south, officials said. Explosions also hit two convoys of international troops in different parts of the country, with Germany saying two of its troops were wounded by a roadside bomb in the northern province of Kunduz. Another explosion targeted NATO troops in Khost in the east, but the alliance said there were no casualties. Afghan and international forces also said a combined commando unit killed a Taleban operative and captured eight others in an overnight raid in Paktia province in the east, though local villagers claimed the men were innocent civilians. In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, thousands of AfghanÂ’s staged an anti-US protest over another night raid that killed two security guards. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #22 "Afghanistan is a stopping place on the road to Pakistan, which also leads to Saudi Arabia. Follow the money. We are treating the surface sore manifestations of a deep disease. We are wasting our time, troops, and treasure, when we are not dealing with the Paks and the Saudi financiers in a quiet, kinetic way." People change when the their pain threshold is exceeded. What is the pain threshold of the Arab Al-Qaeda financiers that we have to exceed to make them change their behavior? A 50 caliber bullet from an SO sniper rifle? Or something more dramatic? I agree that it is proper to treat the financiers as combatants. General Sherman once said, "War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want." Terrorism is the remedy chosen by Al-Qaeda's financiers; let them have all the terrorism they want. Asymmetric warfare was developed because it is impossible to beat the US Military in a conventional fight. Asymmetric warfare assumes that the US will fight conventionally. I say no; give the money guys all the asymmetric warfare we can throw at them. |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2010-07-11 21:26 |
| #21 President Dostum? I like it. Shipping containers full of Pashtuns Frank G, first step would be to place a $10K bounty on the presentation of the head of any journalist found in Afghanistan, Then based on saying "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" no one including yuman rites groups would have any oxygen to conduct their self-righteous propaganda. After that the likes of Dostum would be able to creatively conduct their business. Other than the special forces, no one need ever be the wiser, |
| Posted by: tipper 2010-07-11 16:45 |
| #20 Spot on AP. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-07-11 15:37 |
| #19 Afghanistan is a tribal, high entropy place run by tribal warlords with loyalties that are bought and sold. Al Q set up shop there and formed a base because it was remote and the locals could be bought. We are fools to think that we can go nation building there by transforming the society. A huge multigenerational project and a financial black hole. Afghanistan is a stopping place on the road to Pakistan, which also leads to Saudi Arabia. Follow the money. We are treating the surface sore manifestations of a deep disease. We are wasting our time, troops, and treasure, when we are not dealing with the Paks and the Saudi financiers in a quiet, kinetic way. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2010-07-11 15:34 |
| #18 I'm with Mr. Spemble. Stories like this break my heart; I am tired of losing our sons and daughters when we have unused weapons sitting in scabbards. If we are committed to fight -- let us win. I want our enemies to fear us, not like us. |
| Posted by: Bill 2010-07-11 15:08 |
| #17 Just back the group that most serves our interests and let them at it. It wont be pretty, but then it never was. President Dostum? I like it. Shipping containers full of Pashtuns |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-07-11 12:46 |
| #16 It's not for nothing that Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of Empires. If you were going to bet on the victor, fundamental analysis would strongly suggest not the invader. However Afghanistan is very susceptible to the oldest strategy there is, divide and conquer. The various groups there hate each other. Just back the group that most serves our interests and let them at it. It wont be pretty, but then it never was. |
| Posted by: tipper 2010-07-11 12:39 |
| #15 He made promises? like Woodrow "He kept us out of war" Wilson? Or Franklin "I will not send American boys into any foreign wars" Roosevelt. Or Lyndon "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves." Johnson? Libs cannot be believed by anybody about anything. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-07-11 12:29 |
| #14 Problem Nimble is that Obumbles has already declared that he would not use them under any circumstances - including mass murder via a bio or chem weapon. And personally I serious doubt he would even use them after a nuclear attack. Especially if the 'culprit' has any sort of deniability or grivence (real or imagined) against the US. Remember practically the first liberal / MSM response to 9/11 was: "What did we do to offend them?" or "Why do they hate us?" |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2010-07-11 12:12 |
| #13 But does anyone seriously think that when we pulled out, the Taliban wouldn't walk right back in behind us? And Al Qaeda behind them? And does anyone seriously think that if we are attacked again we would not use systems that require no American presence but render Afghanistan unfit for use as a base for further aggression? We really need to make sure the Afghan leaders understand this. Perhaps a trip to Hiroshima. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-07-11 11:46 |
| #12 Allusion is "a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage".[1] It is left to the reader or hearer to make the connection A pipe dream is a fantastic hope or plan that is generally regarded as being nearly impossible to achieve, originating in the 19th century as an allusion to the dreams experienced by smokers of opium pipes. wikipedia |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-07-11 11:42 |
| #11 Phil_B: The word you want is "illusion", not "allusion". The words are pronounced the same, but have different meanings. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2010-07-11 10:59 |
| #10 But does anyone seriously think that when we pulled out, the Taliban wouldn't walk right back in behind us? And Al Qaeda behind them? The Afghan Arabs of Al Qaeda have been marrying the local girls since the '90s, after all. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-07-11 10:02 |
| #9 Apparently the Christianity is happening, but very quietly. Apostasy is a death sentence over there, after all. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-07-11 09:54 |
| #8 Afghanistan can and will be won in the same way Iraq was: by building up the local army and police until it is strong enough to crush the insurgents and terrorists without outside help. The "experts" said Iraq was lost in 2006 and they were wrong. Opposing the war simply because Obama is in charge instead of Bush is the worst kind of partisan politics. If you don't like Obama, support Petraeus instead. |
| Posted by: Apostate 2010-07-11 09:29 |
| #7 Unless we totally devastate thier cities, population centers, smash the Kaaba to dust, and destroy their corrupt governments and Mullahs the butcher's bill will not end. Or we can just convert them to Christianity. Nothing kills a cult faster than apostasy... A lot less bloody, too. |
| Posted by: badanov 2010-07-11 09:15 |
| #6 Re: "Steele is correct. This IS Obama's war." W. faced a problem after 9-11; how to get the conventional armed forces into a fight against an unconventional foe. The answer was to invade Iraq and setup a kill box. Al-Qaeda could be counted on to "come-on-in" where we could kill them. This (eventually) worked. History argues against fighting a conventional war in Afghanistan. We should be careful about building up conventional forces. All that did for the Russians was to increase the number of targets. SO and drones are our best strategy for containing the Taliban. I would be very surprised if a "hearts-and-minds" campaign will ever work there. What is an acceptable outcome? War lords that export drugs instead of terrorism? There has NEVER been a strong central government in Afghanistan. Do you think that there ever will be? |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2010-07-11 09:11 |
| #5 "According to a UN report published in August, opium-traffickers have stockpiled more than 10,000 tonnes of the stuff...." Arc Light anyone? |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2010-07-11 08:52 |
| #4 ...and the best way to stop, or at least massively restrict, the flow of opiates from terrorist zones? Legalise the trade. Legalise, regulate, quality control, tax. If you do that you know what it is and where it's from. You take supply out of the hands of criminals and terrorists and you turn the whole business from a hugely unstabilising and destructive underground activity into open and controlled, regulated like other drugs (e.g. tobacco and alcohol). The second biggest, if not the biggest - and apparently the most reliable* - main supply of cash to the Taliban would dry up, virtually overnight, as the West sourced supplies from friendly trading partners. To use a rather unfortunate phrase: it's a no-brainer. *"Could the Taliban run out of cash? From drugs at least, the Taliban's future revenue streams look ominously steady. According to a UN report published in August, opium-traffickers have stockpiled more than 10,000 tonnes of the stuff, with a street value of billions of dollars. That's enough to satisfy world demand for two years." |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2010-07-11 05:29 |
| #3 The West has no strategic interest in Afghanistan. The original problem, the Taliban harbouring AQ and OBL, was fixed by deposing the Taliban. Everything else, excepting dronezapping suspected bad guys, is a pointless effort at nation building. And as for narco-terrorism, stopping the flow of cocaine from Columbia or MJ from Jamaica is a vastly simpler problem than stopping the flow of opium/heroin from Afghanistan. And I don't see much success in stopping the flow of C and MJ. Being in Afghanistan to stop the flow of narcotics is a pipedream (opium allusion) |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-07-11 04:42 |
| #2 Unfortunately, Mike Steele is making a cheap political statement. This is not Obama's war, it wasn't Bush's war. This is OUR war. This is a war for the survival of Western culture as we know it and it has been brewing at verious levels of heat for centuries. Ask any European if the current demographics of the continent do not matter. We are at war with Islam, a conflict they fund via crude oil and narco trafficing. International borders mean nothing, nothing to Islam anyway. Afghanistan is simply the current battlespace. Chasing these vermin around the mountains using investigative, law enforcement, and civil-military techniques is a fools game. Unless we totally devastate thier cities, population centers, smash the Kaaba to dust, and destroy their corrupt governments and Mullahs the butcher's bill will not end. There is very, very little chance that we will win this war under Obama. He has no passion for the defeat of Islam in any form, radical or otherwise. His head is not in this game and our generals know it. His planned eviceration of our military could however, could guarantee military defeat for future presidents and houses of congress. Obama is not the cause nor is he part of the solution. Obama is simply the debilitating, socialist, affirmative action pox which we have brought upon ourselves. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-07-11 04:10 |
| #1 Steele is correct. This IS Obama's war. |
| Posted by: Slolutle Hatfield6781 2010-07-11 00:35 |