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| Afghanistan |
| War in Afghanistan: Britain's Vietnam |
| 2006-10-08 |
| A quad bike bounces across battle-ravaged desert, the remains of three dead British soldiers lashed to its back, while a Chinook buzzes overhead. Exhausted squaddies exchange desultory small-arms fire with an invisible enemy. An infantry unit nervously patrols a burning village. These are the images that reveal the gritty, deadly reality of the British engagement in Afghanistan. And they have been released to the world by the angry and beleaguered troops themselves. The pictures were captured on digital cameras over recent months by infantrymen belonging to the Battlegroup of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment. For the most part, they have been sent back to Britain by e-mail, sidestepping the Government's attempts to keep the true nature of the conflict away from the public gaze. This is a deployment that Ministers, safe in their plush Whitehall offices, have characterised as a peacekeeping mission. John Reid, now Home Secretary, notoriously predicted that the British would serve their tour of duty without a shot being fired. Visits to troops by news teams have been discouraged or stage-managed. But these unique pictures, backed up by commentary in the e-mails, tell the truth - of savage and bloodthirsty firefights, of unremitting skirmishes with the Taliban and of shortages of ammunition and even rations. |
| Posted by:john |
| #25 I take it you are saying that being in the presence (real or recreated from a true telling) of that sort of callous and evil disregard for the Talibani's own child wears on the soul of any decent person. I think you're right. It does. Some respond with despair, some by ranting, some by becoming stone cold determined to put an end to such scum. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-08 21:31 |
| #24 I stand by my earlier post. The "image" is dehumanizing, in the same way as watching someone else be tortured is dehumanizing. Think about it. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-10-08 21:25 |
| #23 Just to imagine "the Taliban cutting around on dirt bikes, their weapons in one hand, their kids in the other" is dehumanizing to a civilized human being. Really? How? Reading about it doesn't make me want to pick up a motorbike, a rifle, and a toddler to head off to war. It doesn't make me any less human, or humane. It makes me realize there's plenty of evil in the world, and plenty of people who indulge themselves in it. Their victims are their fault, not mine, or our soldiers. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-10-08 20:25 |
| #22 The Turks also had troops in VietNam, and Great Britain supplied ammo and equipment to the Aussies as their contribution. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2006-10-08 18:26 |
| #21 Just to imagine "the Taliban cutting around on dirt bikes, their weapons in one hand, their kids in the other" is dehumanizing to a civilized human being. Fighting such demonic forces is hard on everyone. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-10-08 17:59 |
| #20 That's right, OP. For you younger 'Bergers. I believe South Vietnam was a member of SEATO and was also defended by troops from Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. We defaulted on a treaty obligation. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-10-08 17:26 |
| #19 "The British Vietnam"? How I wish! Where's the napalm? Where are the ARCLIGHT strikes against enemy "safe areas" like Quetta and the NWFP? Where is Spooky? Most Vietnam Veterans said "never again" in 1975, when Congress refused to stand up to its commitment to the Vietnam people. Yet we're doing the same crap again in Afghanistan. The taliban show us brutality of the most horrible kind, yet we still try to fight a European-type war. It's long past time to give this death cult what it wants, in spades. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-10-08 17:12 |
| #18 Ugh!!! Being distracted by this Giants-Redskins game: They are anti-military, anti-western, brainwashed multiculti idiots fraught with guilt over Europe's alleged misdeeds (yeah, okay, okay, the Belgians were astoundingly brutal in the Congo, but *how long ago was that?*) that they cannot summon the will to sustain casualties in this *twilight* struggle between civilization (that's us, you Euro-trash morons) and the Islamo-Fascist *barbarians*. P.S.: Go Redskins! |
| Posted by: Lancasters Over Dresden 2006-10-08 13:34 |
| #17 Brits and Canadians along with French troops will continue to hammer the Taliban and Al-Qaeda into the dirt. The problem here is the fecklessness of these soldiers' respective civilian leaders and populations. They are anti-military, anti-western, brainwashed multiculti idiots fraught with guilt over Europe's alleged misdeeds (yeah, okay, okay, the Belgians were astoundingly brutal in the Congo, but when how long was that?) that they cannot summon the will to sustain casualties in this twightlight struggle between civilization (that's us, you Euro-trash morons) and the Islamo-Fascist barabrians. |
| Posted by: Lancasters Over Dresden 2006-10-08 13:32 |
| #16 I have it on good authority -- from the defense minister of Belgium no less!! -- that the US military is unprofessional and ineffective. There's not much one can say when confronted with that damning indictment .... |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-08 12:51 |
| #15 From the little I understand, all european armies (western ones, at least) are underfunded, especially when it comes to supplies, and are basically scrounging as they go, just to keep on functioning. And keep in mind that the british and the french armies are the most funded in Western Europe. And yet since WW2 these same European worthies have mocked the US for crushing our enemies in an avalanche of logistics. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2006-10-08 12:22 |
| #14 a5089, I think the French authorities are keeping their contribution out of the limelight because A)any involvement against Muslims will be cause for another carbeque at home, B)they've taught the peepul to view as evil anything that the Americans do, "good war" or not, C)they've taught the peepul to view warfare as always bad, except perhaps when it involves former colonies. Better to keep it all under the radar, even the heroics and the evil done by the enemy. But your men do have our appreciation, no matter how some may trash talk. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-10-08 12:19 |
| #13 One worrisome thing in the troops' comments is the lack of supplies. From the little I understand, all european armies (western ones, at least) are underfunded, especially when it comes to supplies, and are basically scrounging as they go, just to keep on functioning. And keep in mind that the british and the french armies are the most funded in Western Europe. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-08 10:58 |
| #12 Meanwhile: Blair condemned by Army for 'you will have what you need' pledge. In an interview on British Armed Forces Radio yesterday, the Prime Minister said: "If commanders on the ground want more equipment — armoured vehicles for example, more helicopters — that will be provided. Whatever package they want, we will do." And in an article for The Sun, Mr Blair went further, stating: "[British forces] will get, I promise, whatever front-line commanders tell us they need to complete their job." But defence sources said that what commanders needed most desperately was more troops on the ground — something Mr Blair notably failed to mention. Lip service from a Government which has repeatedly cut the armed services and spent tens of times more than it's saved on pointless new civil servants and pursuing the cultural apartheid of multiculturalism. A Government which, in a cost-cutting exercise of mind-blowing stupidity, shaved £2m, IIRC, from the £90m gun-budget for the Eurofighter Typhoon, installing a gun which deliberately would never function. Which pisses ever more money up the wall of a failing NHS. If things deteriorate in British areas of Afghanistan (and Iraq) it will be entirely the Government's fault for demanding the the dwindling British Army works miracles on a shoestring whilst it wastes countless billions of taxpayers' money on its political crusades back home. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2006-10-08 10:42 |
| #11 One worrisome thing in the troops' comments is the lack of supplies. That shouldn't be happening; makes me wonder how good the non-US supply train is. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-10-08 10:40 |
| #10 That child was a future muslim terrorist. It's good news. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-10-08 10:39 |
| #9 One said: "You see the Taliban cutting around on dirt bikes, their weapons in one hand, their kids in the other. They think we will not shoot them. There have been some terrible incidents. It is horrible to kill a kid, nothing could prepare you for it." If you return fire on someone who has purposefully carried a child into combat, the death of the child is not your fault. The fault lies with the animal who brought the child in the first place. If this practice isn't reported, it's because someone doesn't want to reveal who and what we're fighting. Probably because it's "unsophisticated" to "dehumanize" the enemy. But can you dehumanize someone who has abandoned humanity? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-10-08 10:06 |
| #8 When you are fighting with an enemy that seems to glofify death, with matryrs celebrated without the details of the suffering they underwent - no coverage of talibs crapping themselves, crying for their mothers as they die slowly, but with your casualties paraded in the media, you're setting up the conditions for withdrawal .. something the iSI is banking on. |
| Posted by: john 2006-10-08 09:50 |
| #7 The US military really has made a major jump in censoring graphic war imagery, based on a single consideration: there is absolutely, positively, no way of showing such photography that puts the US military and its personnel in a good light. Interesting point. Other militaries are only beginning to catch up on this. The Indian army commander JJ Singh has ordered that trophy photos of dead terrorists with troops be stopped. They still have difficulty with the new media. This was seen in the Kargil war, called the first Indian media war, where nonstop cable coverage, complete with funerals of the dead threatened to create a public pressure to halt the war. There were reports from Gurka areas in Nepal and India, questioning the policy of recruitment. Some Indian officers have written worryingly about this problem, where the media will exert so much political pressure that the army's ability to take casualties, something the IA has traditionally had, will be severely eroded. |
| Posted by: john 2006-10-08 09:45 |
| #6 I gotta hand it to the Brits and the Canucks. They're really taking it to the enemy. On the strength of these reports, I would say that the ABCA (America, Britain, Canada and Australia) nations are not only tied by blood and history, they continue to be bound together by deeds on the battlefield. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-10-08 09:26 |
| #5 So will the new movie by Clint Eastwood - Flags of Our Fathers - have a positive impact, or a negative one? I've read the book, and it's touching. I saw courage and honor and self-sacrifice in it; you could just as easily find futility and horror, and miss all the other positive emotions. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-10-08 09:20 |
| #4 The US military really has made a major jump in censoring graphic war imagery, based on a single consideration: there is absolutely, positively, no way of showing such photography that puts the US military and its personnel in a good light. In other words, no matter who shoots the picture, it becomes enemy propaganda. Civilians back home don't and can't understand it. They have no context. But universally they are repelled by it, and the only direction that repulsion can take is against the US military. As an example, a picture of three dead men. Even if it is labeled "Three heavily armed terrorists killed while attacking an elementary school full of children", the response by civilians who see it will be inappropriate. "Why did you have to kill them? Couldn't you have arrested them instead?" "What was the US military doing that made the insurgents attack that elementary school?" "The military shouldn't fire weapons like it did on school grounds. It could have hurt the children." "It would have been better to talk to the fighters before they had attacked. Maybe they could have been bargained with." Again, just utter inanity, and all based on a single photograph. And singularly, ALL resulting in (self-)criticism of the US military. Never, ever, criticism or revulsion against the enemy. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-08 09:02 |
| #3 Combat is gritty.. something the censors in previous wars understood.. and the reality of combat will destroy morale at home. That is very, very true. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-08 08:51 |
| #2 These reports are worrying. Combat is gritty.. something the censors in previous wars understood.. and the reality of combat will destroy morale at home. These media reports will create a buildup of public pressure to bring the troops home, giving victory to the jihadists. |
| Posted by: john 2006-10-08 08:49 |
| #1 I had actually read this one on antiwar/"anti-NWO" websites, but didn't want to post it because it felt too negative (call it self-censorship, I guess). One of the Afghan survivors said the French had been tied up then gutted alive by the Taliban. It was one of the most shocking things I had ever heard." This bit was in fact circulated by various french "islamophobic" websites, to notice the stunning silence of the french msm about this atrocity and war crime against french soldiers. There's a lack of recognition of the french involvement in Afghanistan which is quite surprizing, except for the occasional and predictable hit piece about the Quagmire. And, yet, Afghanistan is supposed to be the "good" US war. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-08 08:37 |