Posted on 09/09/2009 5:34:13 AM PDT by tcrlaf
GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.
"We will do to you what we did to the Russians," the insurgent's leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.
Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.
U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
...... Eight Afghan troops and police and the Marine commander's Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle that raged from dawn until 2 p.m. around this remote hamlet in eastern Kunar province, close to the Pakistan border.
NEWS YOU WON'T SEE REPORTED ON NBC/MSNBC...
This upsets me to no end....
Obama's put these guys in an unwinnable situation, with rules of engagement that are more likely to get our own killed, than the enemy, and THE PRESS REFUSES TO COVER IT, because a DEMOCRAT is in charge!!!
Damn.. I just knew it would be this way....
CENTCOM and Pentagon Harvard lawyers are running even the tactical ROE. Would I send a son or daughter into this dogfight?
No way. Meanwhile Generalissimo obama ponders what kind of pie to order for tonight's dinner.
No Excuse. This shouldn't happen.
This should give more creedance to the argument that he is not eligible to be CinC.
Want to bet Nancy Pelosi never waited an hour for a military aircraft to fly her botoxed butt on a boondoggle?
I wonder if we could get a map and overlay of this engagement showing the roads, the nearby town, the deployment of our few troops and allied Afghans, and the deployment of the enemy.
What was the S-2 estimate of the total enemy strength in the area? What weapon systems did the enemy utilize?
In SEA, “Troops in contact” suspended an rules of engagement limitations.
“In SEA, “Troops in contact” suspended an rules of engagement limitations.”
Well, it’s obvious that “CHANGE HAS ARRIVED!!”
Obama has ordered our Marines hands tied behind their backs. This sickens me to no end.
My wife’s coworker has a Marine son on his way to Afganistan right now and my own youngest son, back from Iraq in April of this year, is now training in high country in CA presumably to join those now in Afganistan in a couple of months.
I am sickened by my son having to risk his life in this manner for a President that 1) never served a day in the military in his life and 2) has zero respect for our sons & daughters serving this country in uniform.
Is it true that our allies forces do not havethe same ridiculous rules of engagement that our troops must follow? I heard from a vet of Afghanistan that an allied infantry unit got into a firefight and it let a h*** loose
Shades of Vietnam and Beirut. No targeting enemies unless they were within 25 meters of the Ho Chi Minh trail. In Beirut the Marines couldn't fire on an enemy until they were fired on first and then they could only use similar weapons to prevent escalation. In Somolia during the "Blackhawk Down" mission they couldn't use the AC-130 gunships even though they were in-country and ready to go.
Stupid rules kill troops.
I would nuke them back beyond the stone age. One village at a time, one week apart, until the rest marched naked to surrender.
“has zero respect for our sons & daughters serving this country in uniform.”
We have a President that SOLD DRUGS TO KIDS...
What makes ANYONE think he cares about anyone other than himself???
Military historian Stephen Ambrose writes of the practice of the US Army in Europe, each day along the moving forward front in countering, Army wide, hundreds if not thousands of villages.
Typically at first the Army would leave/drive out of a wood line, across open fields towards a village, where upon Germans would fire upon them half way in the open.
After a bit of that happening, the American Army changed and would shell the outermost structures in a village.
So the Germans then changed tactics and moved into a village, setting ambushes in the narrow streets.
Where upon the US Army decided to just go through houses, though the entire village and avoid the streets.
Another standard operating procedure was to shell the highest structure to deign snipers and artillery spotters. Church or no church.
Another tactic was to have the Mayor come out, and he would be told if there are any snipers, or mines, and the Americans encounter them, then the whole village would be reduced to rubble.
Civil War General Sherman was famous for putting Confederate prisoners on the front of trains or on ships so that if snipers or mines were encountered they be killing their own.
He had three and four stars give the orders.
If I said what I really want to say, I would get banned from this board forever. I am sick to my stomach.
When do we start protesting to get these guys out?
Get ‘em out...Stop this war NOW...
This is appalling. If we are not going to support our troops in the field, and provide them the tools they need to safely conduct their missions, then we should quit the battlefield.
As a veteran, I know that war is a bloody business. But, the needless, senseless losses as the consequence of wrongheaded engagement policies driven by lawyers rather than commanders is tantamount to murder.
It’s time to take back the country.
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