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| Afghanistan-Pak-India | |
| A front-row seat in the plodding war on the Taliban | |
| 2005-10-12 | |
The eight-member team is young - the oldest is 28 - and all are fighters of the elite 82nd Airborne, nicknamed the "Ghost Busters." Their mission: To work with about 40 US and 10 Afghan soldiers from a nearby base to sweep villages never before visited by US forces. They're looking for Taliban or their weapons. For the next five days, I will have a front-row seat in what some call "The Other War," where 18,000 US troops continue fighting four years after ousting the Taliban government and sending Osama bin Laden into hiding. I will accompany a US Army squad carrying a mere 40 lbs. of body armor, notebooks, water, and MREs, while they carry up to 115 lbs. of "battle rattle" - guns, ammo, food, body armor, radios, and night-vision equipment. Together, we will tell a lot of unprintable jokes, see a lot of sheep, find a few Taliban weapons caches, and try to reassure scared villagers. See the rest at the link | |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #6 SPO'D, you're right on the money there. When those airliners destroyed the twin towers I said to myself "This Bush guy had better do something about these mutha farkers!" He did. And I've supported him ever since. Pretty much. |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2005-10-12 19:09 |
| #5 The Bush presidency was made the day the first "operatives" arrived in Afghanistan. The MSM is loath to say so. 8 years of Clintons refusal to do anything of note in the war that AQ was waging on us. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-10-12 18:40 |
| #4 Interesting comments... I think that MSM stalwarts like WaPo are inviting the occasional OpEd piece from non-Moonbats - such as the one that set me off the other day. First, I don't think they could write a balanced piece - they're too entrenched and awash in Kool Aid, themselves and it provides distance to maintain their "liberal" and "progressive" credentials. Second, it begins to open the window a bit to allow them to pretend to be "balanced" and merely reporting, not driving an agenda. Of course they presume we're all fools out here in flyover America - and don't notice the 50-1 ratio of crap to fact. Just beginning to cover their "bets". It will be interesting to see what they do if the Iraqis pass the constitution - and actually begin to function as a republic. A WaPo Int'l desk Editor was on Fox this morning - and admitted passage would be huge, a major chip for Bush. He even opined that it would "make" Bush's presidency. He didn't acknowledge that this, and more, had already transpired in Afghanistan, of course. Can't expect him to actually be honest and balanced, merely to try to appear to be so. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-12 14:50 |
| #3 Well, I think the MSM is trying to migrate its embarassment into a "good war/bad war" dichotomy. Saying that they were actually *for* Afghanistan from the beginning, because it's such an obvious winner; and yet keeping their anti-war mantra up against Iraq. They really were rattled by the first Afghan elections. It shook a lot of them to their bones. So now they are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Most of them are still in the denial phase about Afghanistan, refusing to even mention it. But I would never confuse this with their "coming around" to the big picture idea. They would have to renounce far too much to do that. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-12 14:21 |
| #2 Fascinating perspective, Anonymoose.:-) But even if less than perfect, this series of articles from the Christian Science Monitor, whose reports are referenced often by National Public Radio and other news media, marks the winning of a battle with the mainstream media. Perhaps one day we'll win that war. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-10-12 12:52 |
| #1 Patrolling the endless tiny villages of rural Afghanistan truly re-defines iron man sport. What the correspondent misses by just going out with the pickets, is the real purpose of the exercise: shmoozing with the locals. The US forces go out of their way to convey what every Afghan admires: a rich and very generous, powerful and overwhelmingly strong warlord. A warlord of warlords. And yet they always come in respect and bearing precious gifts. They ask for nothing in return, needing nothing. But if the Afghans wish to share information about their mutual enemies, then the generocity of the Americans is beyond belief. Quite literally. An Afghan knows that he may risk his life by giving information, but by doing so, he may get the wealth of a dozen years of hard work. Just by the good fortune of having Americans around, he does not have to do the back-breaking labor of digging a meagre water well, instead getting a good well that will last for generations. For Americans seem to enjoy digging water wells, as they do it everywhere they go. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-12 12:01 |