US forces continue to press forward in the Marjah region of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, put are said to be struggling mightily with home-made bombs and sniper fire, and were able to advance only 500 yards yesterday.
Despite the pretense that the battle is going “according to plans,” the promises of a quick victory with overwhelming force in Marjah has turned out to be overly optimistic, with some officials now saying the offensive could take upwards of a month.
Still, the optimism isn’t entirely lost, and some US commanders remain convinced, to quote Colonel Scott Hartsell, that “pretty soon, they are going to run out of gas.”
The US has been pledging the invasion for over a month, aimed at installing a Karzai appointee as governor of Marjah. The troops began the invasion on Friday, with Taliban forces pledging to “wait out” the raid.
All military offensives have some issues. Give it time and you guys will be able to lament the loss of so many great taliban fighters.
And you will lament the needless loss of many brave young American servicemen and women who should never have been sent to war anyway.
So the 'surge' is a slog. Gen. Stan standing there with his "government-in-a-box" and golly, he just looks and sounds silly. Wow, the best laid plans of holistic military genius and the brass still do not get it. Quagmire. Been there, done that, packed up and left. Hmmm, deja vu all over again.
They have to have standard forms with the names of the locations and 'glorious' leaders names as fill in the blank, 'cause this sounds just like the stuff we got during Viet Nam.
Notice this area butts on the border of Iran? Reason NATO wants the locals out–build a massive green zone/military staging airport to attack Iran.With the locals gone– no pest problems :^/
500 yards? 1,500 feet? seriously that's "moving forward"?! jesus F*&in A…that's not an offensive or gaining territory, that's driving down the road and stopping. no wonder they said we'd be in afghanistan 100 years, at this rate we'll have to be. aside from the overall travesty of the entire afghanistan endeavor, it's illegality and sheer uselessness, whatever happened to the bravery of the US military? seriously, if you guys are so bad ass, you should just go in there and clean house. minimizing casulties is one thing, i get it, but 500 yards against a bunch of guys running around in dresses with diapers on their heads!? man, you aren't nearly as tough as you think you are.i guess stan the man mccrystal is too worried about having to cover up more friendly fire deaths.
we already did this 40 years ago..it was called vietnam. we lost. oppressive force has never beaten determined guerilla assistance, and it never will.
One estimate said that there were 45 Taliban Fighters in Marjah.
Opposed to 15,000 NATO Troops these 45 are not doing too badly.
Perhaps the Taliban have been watching "The Magnificent Seven "movies. Maybe we will see the glorious retreat of NATO from Marjah followed by claims of total victory from McChrystal and Obama with Gordon Brown playing the fiddle..
some how the strategy of fighting booby traps and ied with announced troop concentrations seem like they want to cut some life time health care off their budget.
I take my hat off to these extraordinary warriors, not the American ones of course. The strongest military in the world with all the high tech weapons at their disposal, and they are trashed by this "bunch of guys running around in dresses with diapers on their heads". On top, these "bad" guys are fewer. My guess is that they must be super men. Eventually they might be dislodged, but they have already proven their super quality as fighters.
This is the point where I say I sure do not approve of our undeclared wars but I hope our Joes get that operation finished as quickly as possible.
Wanton disregard for civilian life is NOT a characteristic of the bulk of our military and our commanders will put together a plan to "succeed" in Marjah……..
Of course, the Taliban will only pop up somewhere else to fight another day and it will go on and on and on……
Good luck guys and try to get home in one piece………
Your national leaders have sent you into a hornets nest.
Yo, "Chuck" in an illegal, immoral war of aggression such as that the USraeli Empire
is presently pursuing in Afghanistan, everyone is a "civilian", even those resisting. You see, the Taliban have a legal and moral right to defend their country against the invading imperial forces, just as you would if someone unjustifiably attacked you. Anyone who deploys to Afghanistan or Iraq or any other illegal, immoral U.S. imperialist war becomes a war criminal by definition.
Remarkable. Civilian deaths continue and I wonder if our embedded wunder-kinder, i.e. the MSM will ever show those "pictures"? They are such pussies and speak with the voice of their military masters. I guess I have to go to the foreign press yet again to get the "truth". Still, lets be reall about this, who in their right mind broadcasts for weeks on end their arrival and then tells the locals to stay put so they can then be bombed to death? They then claim that the people were "held hostage" by insurgents. It's mind boggling.
"Pootie-Tang's so cold, he'll draw a blueprint of how he's gonna kick your ass, mail it to ya on Friday, you look at it and say "What the fuck is this shit?" Monday comes around, he knocks on your door and … stands there."
-Chris Rock "Pootie-Tang" (paraphrased)
Sigh… What gets to me a little more than it's illegality and cruel horror, is it's utter stupidity.