All right, I just wrote out a long entry but it got erased when I tried to post it…frustrating.
But the deal is, I’m wondering what in the Sam Hell is going on with this Azizabad raid story.
Saw a story last night on Fox about it. Ollie North (who I do not respect as a journalist, but isn’t a bad guy personally — I’ve bumped into him on two trips to Iraq) and a pretty damned good cameraman with no Fox agenda were embeded with the MARINE special operations force on the raid.
They saw the engagement. They saw the casualties. They did not see what “witnesses,” the UN, the Afghan government or the New York Times (nice try with that BS iPhone video) saw.
Watch the report:
Now, what I want to know if there’s anyone else out there who can tell us the straight gouge. Why? Here’s what I’m worried about. There’s a high level delegation going over there to conduct another “investigation.” They HAVE to find something wrong. Who are they going to hang out to dry? MarSoc…once AGAIN. Remember all the “civilians” they killed in March 2007 after that roadside ambush? They got kicked out of theater, the commander in Afghanistan prostrated himself before the Afghans, the media and the Pentagon for forgiveness. The Corps holds a public inquiry on the incident and what do they find? The MarSoc operators did NOTHING wrong.
How much do you want to bet this will be replayed once more? Help us keep this from happening again, folks.
– Christian
What bugs me is that they weren’t laid out like that when they were killed. It’s easy enough to remove a weapon cover the bodies place them in a row and say civilians YEAH right I don’t believe that for a second. The US is not out to just nail anyone and everyone the steps they have to go through to even fire a missile common. Just because they fight in civilian clothing does not make them civilian casualties.
Bottom line: Remove there weapons and claim they are civilian it’s simple propaganda by the militants losing.
KILL THEM ALL!!!
The iphone does not support video capture capability.
MY ANGER!
MY RAGE!
When will we stop accepting our enemies account of the battle?
I’m with marine-1, but lets begin with the NYT.
What do you call a person who looks like you, talks with you, rides with you into battle, but secretly does all he can to destroy you? They used to call them spies, and shoot them. Today we call them embeded reporters.
CR wrote: “If we are not smart enough to alter our tactics and plan accordingly then we should simply leave now.“
SINCE WHEN DO WE ALTER OUR BATTLEFIELD STRATEGY TO PLEASE THE WORLD MEDIA, OR OUR MEDIA??? They all are the convenient idiots for our enemies.
As for the UN reports: Were they there during the battle?
Didn’t this same Marine SOF unit get in trouble last year and got kicked out of country?
I read lots of articles about this a week ago and this latest New York Times article seems to mirror many of them and add more detail if even part of it is true. Questions you gotta ask yourself that tend to mean at least some of it may be true:
While I certainly understand that collateral damage will occur and the Taliban uses human shields, it still does not justify bombing so many homes when at 1 AM you could expect civilians to be inside.
1) This is a different part of Afghanistan where Pashtuns who form the base of the Taliban are not in charge. It’s not your typical area for Taliban attacks
2) The brother of the man being mourned who was also killed in this raid (executed?)had a contract to PROTECT the nearby allied base. Would he give up a lucrative contract to turn against his employer?
3) It was 1 AM in the morning when the friendly team did the body count. What can you see then even with NVGs. Obviously they would not stick around to dig through the rubble where most bodies would have been.
4) It is understandable that a large group of kids would be huddled together to sleep and be babysat while others celebrated/prayed. Reports were that many folks were running but small children probably would not and would hunker down with their women babysitters.
5) Why did we bomb so many buildings? Was it smart at 1 AM when civilians are likely to be at home?
6) I don’t think we have multiple Oscar contenders in this neck of the woods. Reports seem to indicate that multiple villagers were highly upset. In addition, while I understand that some try to claim dependents were killed to get paid, it has never been on this scale before. Why did this one particular group raise such a stink when most other attacks don’t create many headlines?
7) Hate to say it but with Ollie North on hand, there was probable incentive to put on a good show for the press. The Fox footage I saw was not conclusive. If you approach any group’s homes in Afghanistan at night they may open fire on you…especially if you are guarding the base, already had your brother killed, and think the Taliban might be after your tribe that I suspect was not Pashtun.
9) Because Herat is not an area where allied operations occur as commonly, it could easily be a case where bad intelligence was purposely given to kill off an opponent tribe. Without extensive dealings in the area before or after, it would be a fairly simple ruse to pull off.
I stand behind the war and our troops 1000% but we DO need to be more careful using airpower.
Ever since the Vietnam war; America and especially the western powers have proven to be ‘weak’ in the face of an enemy. Bloody our nose, and we’ll go home. Embarrass, humiliate, depict us as monsters and we will go home.
Honestly… Its messy when these things happen.. its sad and unfortunate. But they happen.
The only thing I’m wondering is how sure are they that this was done by the U.S. and not a Taliban ‘clean up crew’.
“War is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means.“
– Karl von Clausewitz
Please the media Obviously my point did not get across…we are engaged in a war of ideoligies and we must understand that this war is being fought on the ground and in the hearts and minds of millions of muslims worldwide. So long as the Taliban can show images of dead ‘villagers’ (real or not) they will have a continous stream of reinforcements and so will Al Qaeda.
The media reports what they see and even if they implant their bias that is beyond our control.…stop whining about this and realize what the root problem is.…why is it that the Taliban and Al Qaeda can seemingly always reconstitute themselves despite all our best efforts? They are portraying this as a war on Islam and with the Muslim audience they are succeeding.
Trying to win this war by military means alone is a recipe for failure.…
Oh and by the way.…lets count how many powers have been able to control that tribal area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.….exactly zero. England tried, Russia tried…shall I continue.…
Those whose forget history.….
Marcello:
Please show me the pictures of this car you are talking about!!!!
Did you not see that photos? You are disproving the point you are trying to make by quoting numbers. The media did blow this out of proportion and did lie.
here are your “hundreds of bullets“
http://www.nancarrow-webdesk.com/warehouse/storage2/2007-w42/img.38925.html
Maybe lots of these bullets were of a molecular size, new US weaponary?? lol
CR:
While I agree history does teach us and we should listen, is it a reason to give up? Look at Northern Ireland, it’s looking really good these days, yet it definitely has taken a great number of years. They never had infrastructure problems to deal with or ever had a land mass the size of Afghanistan to deal with.
If the situation weas reversed, and US journalist said there were civilian casualties when everyone else denied it, who would you believe?
I’m sure the truth will come out in the end, but a lot of people will still be in denial.
@Vstress: unfortunaly i don’t have the pictures they showed in the Italian media, but i clearly remember the car being in a much worse shape than that, i’ll look into it (and i remember it being white and not silver gray, but this certainly depends on how the pictures were taken).
In the Prowler incident the fact that the pilots were flying too low and fast was proved during the process.
M
Re: Marcello
“Despite the fact that the car was actaully riddled with hundreds of rounds the US commission decided that Nicola Calipari was killed by accident by stray bullets.“
The communist woman claimed 400 rounds fired, when the car was hit with 5.
Marcello ain’t got any pictures, he’s just spreading shitty little rumours, oh and good job if they did kill your precious Italian secret service agent, reason being we don’t want asshats striking up deals with savage terrorists as it only encourages more kidnapings and beheadings.
Jimbo,
I am in no way saying we should give up…we cannot afford to lose this conflict.…but I am saying that we need to rethink how we are fighting the war against the Taliban.
We need to be very careful with the application of force and work with the people in that region. It is not easy but it can be done.…
When people say things like “Kill them all” they are playing into the hands of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, it’s exactly what they want. They want to be able to show on TV scenes of dead villagers as the result of US airstrikes.…it’s the best recruitment material in the world for them.
Education, stability, peace and prosperity are the enemies of extremeism and fanatacism that’s how you start to attack the root cause of the global jihadism movement.
From an article regarding the use of Predator UAVs to find Bin Laden.…
“In interviews, the officials attributed their failure to find bin Laden to an overreliance on military force, disruptions posed by the war in Iraq and a pattern of underestimating the enemy.”
Instead of killing the embeded reporters who have an agenda and only report what they want you to see, why don’t people just come up with their own conclusions on issues like this? Instead of believing everything the media crams down your throat why don’t people actually do their own research. The interet has definately brought it to your fingertips, all you have to do is research it on your own to get around all the biased out there. I prefer to watch mostly Foxnews with a little CNN to counter each bias but on subject like the Tanker Fiasco I’ll go out and research it myself and come to my own conclusion. The problem is people are generally too lazy to look things up for themselves, hence the reason we should restrict who we allow to vote. Americans, on the whole, are not educated enough to vote for the country’s best interest. RANT OVER
“Kill them all…“
Yeah, it’s working great so far genius.….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26642415/
I have to go with the SOF team on this one. The video doesn’t seem to show much and the insurgents there have resorted to killing civilians and then forcing their families and villagers to claim the US killed them to deface the US and Afgan gov’t and then collect the soliatium payments made to the family.
Along with forcing groups of civilians into fighting positions with the taliban so when the US forces take out the fighting position they also kill the civilians in there which is then given to the media to make the US look bad.
CR wrote:
Maybe it is just me, but isn’t it time to leave Afghanistan?
Granted Bin Laudin may still be out there, but what strategic value does the country have except being a training ground for the special forces?
The real problem of 9–11 was a immigration agency that was asleep at the wheel…
Some may suggest I am saying cut and run, but I think it is time to take a hard look at what we are fighting for over there.
There is no “Domino effect” over there. Just a bunch of screwed up Muslim countries.
We could be there for a hundred years and things will not be better.
First of all what is a “save muslim..“
Secondly, the ignorance being displayed here is staggering.…
Go visit Turkey CTR1.….
It never takes me long to find anti-Muslim bigotry being spread by posters on any topic that has to do with Muslims.
CTR1(SW)seems to think he understands Islam and Muslims and tells us all that “there is no such thing as a safe Muslim.” Apparently, we are all moles who have yet to be activated by some shadowy government or organization. Sounds like The Protocols of the Elders of Islam if you ask me.
As for Israel, it is not just “Muslim extremists” who are fighting for their freedom. Palestinian Christians and Muslims have struggled for liberty for years against Israeli terrorism, murder and theft. Will anyone here have the courage to support the Palestinian people?
CTR! wrote: “The Koran is the only
*CR breathes a sigh of relief.…*
Tontochoc, you have restored my confidence that there is intelligent life here.….
Excellent points by the way.…a good example of turning the tide against an insurgency is what they did in the Anbar province.…I like Patreaus, he gets it…
Steve,
Very good points.…my point with the Crusades was that Christianity is one of the few religions to have actually commanded the slaughter of non-believers.…like CTR1 is implying Islam commands it’s followers to do.
I sometimes rant for affect.
CR.
You still claim that christians are commanded to kill unbelievers, but you have failed to identify the sentence or paragraph in the new testament. It is not there. On the other hand, there are 109 seras, called
It’s rant for effect, not affect, Heaven forbid you call for affective fire when I want effective fire.
I have been told that the the ground forces biggest enemy in Afghanistan is the air force. You also give Islamic armies far more credit than they deserve. Paraphrasing Hillaire Belloc, what ever happens we have got Trident, strategic bombers, Minuteman and they have not. Have there been any successful Islamic armies defeating another country of similar size. No. To be brutal it is generally accepted that the best military force in the Middle East and North Africa, other than the Israelis, are the Jordanians. They haven’t won squat although forcing out the PLO at the point of a Centrion tank barrel was a neat trick which screwed up Lebanon.
The most powerful Arab military is the Egyptian Army.
CTR1, read the Old Testament.…the crap in there is unreal.…
Learn to spot provocatuer trolls like “jarhead-1″ who is just fishing for an emotional backlash. Please do not feed the trolls. Take care of yourselves and spend more time with your family and friends if you find you can’t separate the hate spewers from genuine people. This is a new year and a lot of things are happening. Get rested and stay healthy.