3 hour firefight in Afghanistan
U.S. Army Pvt. John Stafinski, a native of Seville, Ohio, fires his M-249 squad automatic weapon during a three-hour gun battle with insurgent fighters in Kunar province, Afghanistan's Waterpur Valley, Nov. 3. Stafinski is an infantryman with Company C, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, based out of Fort Carson, Colo. (U.S. Army photo/Sgt. Matthew Moeller)
In: Images, Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, US Army
Afghans want us to loosen ROE
In an article from the Asia Times, an Afghan father named Sharaf endorsed a loosening of the restrictive Rules of Engagement on U.S. troops: “I do not mind if I am killed, provided that the Americans get rid of the Taliban. Those tyrants have taken my son’s leg. They laid mines on the road. Don’t they see these roads are also used by civilians?”
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, Rules of Engagement, Taliban
FOD!
PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- Paratroopers from 3rd Platoon, Company B, 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division prepare to load a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter in the Bermel District of the Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan, Oct. 13, during an air-assault mission to detain a known militant. (Photo by U.S. Army Pfc. Andrya Hill, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division Public Affairs)
Foreign Objects & Debris for those playing along at home.
In: Images, Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, US Army
First Official Resigns Over War in Afghanistan
Matthew Hoh, a former U.S. Marine who was serving as a Foreign Service Officer in Zabul, Afghanistan, has resigned.
“To put simply, I fail to see the value or the worth in the continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war,” wrote Hoh in his resignation letter.
I do see the value and the worth of continued U.S. casualties and resources because the alternative is very, very nasty. However, I fail to see the value or the worth in the continued presence of the Obama administration. We will never turn Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy, but our military sure as hell can turn the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists into dead tangoes. That’s all that’s missing, and it could be provided by an administration that had a freaking clue. Not to say the Bush administration was ideal, but they did send the Taliban running for their caves with their tails between their legs in October, 2001.
Hoh spent six years in Iraq, seeing combat as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and as a civilian for the Defense Department.
Hoh told the Washington Post:
“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the “second-best job I’ve ever had,” his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
“There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed,” he said of al Qaeda and the Taliban. “I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys.”
Remember when war meant killing the bad guys? Marines are good at that. It’s what makes them happy, and what makes the enemy second-guess the whole going to war with the infidel thing.
Now Obama is seeking to cut deals with the bad guys. Well if that worked, why didn’t we just pay off the Nazis and the Soviets? And let’s not forget that the Taliban aren’t innocent bystanders in the Long War. Basically the entire “Who’s Who in Islamic Terrorism” went through some Taliban terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll released last week showed that 31 percent of Americans believe Obama has a clear plan for dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, while 63 percent think he does not.
31 percent? Would those 31 percent care to share what the hell Obama’s “clear plan” is?
The morale is s**t. The nation does not have the resolve to win the war. The administration is doing nothing. How long will Americans put up with this? How many more troops have to die in vain before Washington pulls its collective head out of its a**?
I say keep the troops, pull out the politicians.
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, US Marine Corps
Obama’s artwork matches indecision on Afghanistan
I guess you can learn a lot about a man from the artwork he hangs in the White House (all of his records are sealed, so what else do we have to work with?). From The Times:
…it has not gone unnoticed among [Obama's] generals that among the works of art chosen by the Obamas to hang in the White House is Edward Ruscha’s painting about indecision, I Think I’ll … The picture superimposes phrases such as “maybe … yes”, “maybe … no” and “wait a minute” on top of a blood-red sunset.
I think I'll... (1983) by Ed Ruscha
The Guardian says of the painting:
That pretty much sums up the 44th presidency as seen through the eyes of Fox News.
In: Politics · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Operation Enduring Freedom
Obama Prepared to Bail Out the Taliban
With Obama in the White House, even terrorists receive a Stimulus! Hooray!
Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse (from The Times)…
The Obama administration is considering outbidding the Taliban to persuade Afghan villagers to lay down arms as it struggles to find a new approach to a war that is fast losing public and congressional support.
Didn’t we send troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban? Now the Obama administration is wanting to legitimize yet another terrorist group:
Apart from training more Afghan troops, the focus has shifted to accepting a political role for the Taliban, while also trying to weaken them by winning some over.
Once again, it is impossible to win over people who have a religious duty to eliminate our civilization through jihad. There is no middle ground, and they will only use our money against us. The even bigger problem I believe is that the Obama administration has to know this.
Here’s what passes for war strategy when community organizers and revolutionaries run the government:
Paying Taliban foot-soldiers to switch sides could spare US lives and save money, say its advocates. A recent report by the Senate foreign relations committee estimated the Taliban fighting strength at 15,000, of whom only 5% are committed idealogues while 70% fight for money — the so-called $10-a-day Taliban. Doubling this to win them over would cost just $300,000 a day, compared with the $165m a day the United States is spending fighting the war.
These “advocates” are so far off base this isn’t even worth analyzing. But I had been under the impression we sent troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda-associated movements - not to save money! I wonder why we didn’t just pay off the Wermacht in 1944 rather than invade Normandy.
At least someone has a clue:
Some experts disagree. Gilles Dorronsoro from the Carnegie Institute insisted: “You cannot break an insurgency that strong with money. It’s not a mercenary force — it’s a very powerful movement.”
The thing is that the Afghans know that the U.S. is about to cut and run just like every other civilization that has occupied Afghanistan throughout human history. The ones who take the money will be left high and dry when Obama decides enough is enough, but the Taliban are there to stay, and will remember who wasn’t willing to continue the jihad. All this would be is another collosal waste of taxpayer money, which the Taliban will end up appropriating anyways.
This is obviously a UK story because they actually found more than one person who isn’t in lockstep with the administration. Obama is getting caught up in his own words:
Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that the president has only himself to blame. “It was Obama who insisted in March and again last month that this was a ‘war of necessity’ and must be fully resourced rather than looking at what we really have at stake in Afghanistan.”
In: Geopolitics · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Obama administration, Operation Enduring Freedom, Taliban
On Afghanistan, Washington has no clue
At Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer makes the point that I have been making for years:
“there is no clear mission in Afghanistan, no clear idea of victory, and no understanding of the jihad doctrine that motivates not only the Taliban but others in Afghanistan — and all that is a recipe for disaster.”
I don’t believe in calling a war “Bush’s” or “Obama’s.” But with the exception of the initial phase where the military kicked the Taliban out of power, the handling of the war by both administrations has been feckless, although considerably more so under the current administration, which is more concerned with matters like the Olympics and cannot be bothered by trivial things like war. Thanks to this style of leadership Afghanistan is starting to look a lot more like it did in September 2001. This is humiliating because I thought this used to be the United States of America.
The jihadis started this war, and either Washington pulls its head out of… the sand – and starts fighting to win, or we become the Islamic Republic of Amrikistan. It’s that simple.
In: Military, Politics · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Jihad Watch, Operation Enduring Freedom, Robert Spencer
Soros-linked groups helped draft Counterinsurgency Field Manual
In October of 2001, the U.S. military and Northern Alliance drove the Taliban from power in a matter of days. Eight years later, the Taliban is coming back into power and – let’s face it – our military is retreating.
Not to the discredit of the great men and women of our armed forces, mind you. Despite Washington’s best efforts, they have held off the Taliban for this long. They have done everything that they could do and then some. But why are we losing Afghanistan?
I could name several reasons, but one in particular is our misguided philosophy for conducting war. The Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24) teaches our troops how to combat terrorists by resembling something closer to community organizers than warfighters. Unfortunately, flushing toilets and highways courtesy of the U.S. military doesn’t have the devastating effect on the Taliban and al Qaeda that the authors of FM 3 -24 intended.
Or does it?
Through John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security – a left-leaning think tank established by John Podesta – we learn (see video below) that two George Soros-linked groups helped draft FM 3-24: Human Rights Watch and the Carr Center for Human Rights. The Human Rights Watch has long been a benefactor of Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI), and the Carr Center is linked to OSI as well.
When a group receiving money from Soros has a hand in setting our defense policy, that is a sure loss for the good guys.
After reading the manual in 2007, I thought it made sense. A little counterinsurgency (COIN) coupled with some serious firepower from our military would make fast work of naughty jihadis, and our troops could come home victorious. Ideally the surviving jihadis would return to their caves and wait another century or two before trying world domination again. But I did not foresee COIN all but replacing warfighting altogether.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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In: Military, Politics · Tagged with: Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, George Soros, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Institute, Operation Enduring Freedom
Who has the answers to your Afghanistan questions?
While think tanks ponder what is the metric of success and what victory will look like eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the Washington Post kid’s section totally gets it.
The KidsPost answers questions like “What are U.S. troops doing in Afghanistan?” and “What does it matter to us what happens in Afghanistan?” in a handful of sentences. It’s questions like these that the Democrats and left-leaning think tanks chose to ignore, because they cannot engage in reasonable debate.
Hopefully Uncle Sam has sent our troops a copy or two as it seems they themselves are wanting to know what U.S. troops are doing in Afghanistan.
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom
5th soldier dies following Afghan ambush
Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook became the fifth U.S. soldier to die as a result of an ambush last month in Afghanistan. Despite assurances that air support was only five minutes away, the team had to wait over an hour, and despite repeated calls for artillery support (and assurances that the enemy wasn’t near the village), commanders withheld artillery support – thanks to new emasculated rules of engagement.
The 41-year-old native of Colorado Springs, Colo. was on his last tour before his retirement. Westbrook’s brother died in Iraq in 2007 while serving in the National Guard.
In addition to the five U.S. deaths, nine Afghans died and 20 U.S. and Afghan soldiers were wounded.
The names of the other fallen Americans:
Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class James R. Layton, 22, Riverbank, Calif.
Marine 1st Lt. Michael E. Johnson, 25, Virginia Beach, Va.
Gunnery Sgt. Aaron M. Kenefick, 30, Roswell, Ga.
Gunnery Sgt. Edwin W. Johnson, Jr., 31, Columbus, Ga.
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, Rules of Engagement
