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2007-11-10 Afghanistan

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Posted by john frum 2007-11-10 07:46|| || Front Page|| [13 views ] Top
File under: Taliban

#1 And its a quagmire here too.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-11-10 08:31|| 2007-11-10 08:31|| Front Page Top

#2 Why is ambush in quotes in the article? Was it not an ambush?

How big of a patrol was this? The casualties are the better part of a platoon - was this a company-size maneuver, or was a platoon-strength patrol effectively wiped out? How did the wounded get out of the trap if it was the latter? Was there a QRF? Air support? Are the high casualties due to a lack of air support? Were they too far away from their supports to be reinforced in time?

This report sucks rocks. Something stinks, but it's so bare bones that I can't tell if it's the reporting or something is terribly bent with the NATO force wherever the hell this happened - the article doesn't even get more detailed than "eastern Afghanistan". I'm going to presume that this isn't the Panshir Valley or someplace relatively friendly. Were did this happen?

Nggh!

OK, here's the AFP version. Much better. This was *not* a combat patrol, but rather a group coming back from a meeting with local officials. It was a true ambush of an unprepared group, not a combat element caught off guard. Nuristan, huh? The locals aren't Pashtuns, and the politics of the region are kind of complicated, from what I just read. It might not have even been the Taliban - the Nuristanis are real hillbillies.

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2007-11-10 11:32|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2007-11-10 11:32|| Front Page Top

#3 My best guess is that it was a PRT meeting and that the group may not have been all military. Two platoons of troops sounds wonky somehow.

Posted by Chuck Simmins">Chuck Simmins 2007-11-10 12:25|| http://northshorejournal.org]">[http://northshorejournal.org] 2007-11-10 12:25|| Front Page Top

#4 This report sucks rocks

Let's reason together and see if we can figure out why this report sucks rocks.

COULD IT HAVE TO DO WITH THE DAMN WAR MORON?

How does I make MORON look bigger?

Posted by Thomas Woof 2007-11-10 13:16|| 2007-11-10 13:16|| Front Page Top

#5 You would have preferred Afghan women being stoned, banned from hospitals, treated like cattle and afgahn children dying like flies (infant mortality is in freefall and that is thanks to GW Bush not to you).

You are not merely a moron, you are morally repellant. Racist too.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-11-10 17:20|| 2007-11-10 17:20|| Front Page Top

#6 easy now..... Mitch H is absolutely not a troll/racist/bigot/bigamist/puppie blender - he was complaining about the lack of clear info, nothing else, IMHO....

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-11-10 17:41|| 2007-11-10 17:41|| Front Page Top

#7 Agreed, Frank. I understood Mitch's comment ... the initial report was too sketchy to understand what exactly happened. And being CNN, they weren't particularly interested in accurate reporting.

He found the AFP report that added more details and made more sense... it was a nation-building team that got ambushed after a meeting with the locals, not a combat patrol that got overpowered.

May G-d bless those Troops and their families. It will be a bleak Thanksgiving.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2007-11-10 17:48|| 2007-11-10 17:48|| Front Page Top

#8 damn
probably there was a double agent in the Afghan forces

Posted by mhw 2007-11-10 18:45|| 2007-11-10 18:45|| Front Page Top

#9 Or one or more of the local officials, mhw, or the man at the falafel stall outside the meeting (or whatever the local equivalent is -- I'm sure it isn't falafels), or one of the women had a cousin whose husband's brother is with the bad guys...

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2007-11-10 20:24|| 2007-11-10 20:24|| Front Page Top

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