NATO says kills 100 fighters in huge Afghan battle

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 10/6/09 | Peter Graff

[NormsRevenge]

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO forces said Tuesday they had killed more that 100 fighters in a huge weekend battle in eastern Afghanistan in which eight Americans died, the deadliest firefight for U.S. troops in more than a year.

The revised enemy death toll gives an idea of the scale of the battle, one of the biggest of the eight-year-old war, in which hundreds of fighters armed with machine guns, rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attempted to storm remote outposts.

"A more detailed battlefield assessment following the October 3 attack in Nuristan has determined that enemy forces suffered more than 100 dead during the well-coordinated defense, significantly higher losses than originally thought," NATO said in a statement.

[Mouton]

Too bad there were not a another six zeros following the 100.

[GauchoUSA]

The sad part is that they actually think they can go toe to toe with our boys out there. It is hard to accept and even think about it this way, but I’m afraid this war will not be lost on the field of battle. This war may be lost in the White House.

[RKV]

Or in the media. Not unlike Tet.

[Night Hides Not]

Or in the media. Not unlike Tet.

The focus needs to be turned away from body counts. The Taliban has plenty of uneducated, brainwashed young men ready to die for those 72 virgins.

Mr. Biden, your counterterrorism strategy will fail, although there's no guarantee of success for a counterinsurgency strategy...

...particularly with the current CINC.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The sad part is that they actually think they can go toe to toe with our boys out there."

I don't think so. They know they can't go toe to toe with our boys, but they don't have to. They are fighting an insurgency/gurilla warfare strategy. They didn't attack a large built up area. They attacked an outpost that they most likely thought they could overrun and inflict heavy U.S. casualties. They probably did not expect the firefight to be that long and thus give our side a chance to employ supporting arms.

They know if they inflict enough damage and drag the war out long enough, they can make us go away. They also want to make the locals fear them so that the locals will not help our side. This is why the surge is needed to employ the proper counter insurgency strategy. We need enough troops in the remote outposts to defend them from Taliban and Al Queada attack. When the population feels safe and that we aren't going to leave them until the Taliban are gone, then they will cooperate more freely with us.

[Scythian]

Rumor has it Obama was in the fetal position repeating over and over again “this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening ...”

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Or in the media. Not unlike Tet."

This is nothing like Tet. Giapp had enough forces and supporting arms to simultanously attack multiple built up urban areas (Da Nang, Hue). The Viet Cong had more than 80,000 troops striking more than 100 towns and cities. This was one solitary outpost that they tried to take down with overwhelming force, but they cannot muster anywhere near the scale of the Viet Cong or NVA could.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

And Michelle had to change his diapers.... : )

[Seruzawa]

The Vietnam War would have been a cake walk if the VC and NVA had been as incompetent as these jihadis. Relying on Allah to guide their bullets. LOL!

[reagan_fanatic]

Rumor has it Obama was in the fetal position repeating over and over again “this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening ...”

That's no rumor.

[RKV]

This is everything like Tet. Perception is reality, and even though we kick the Talibs from her to Islamabad, as long as the people are fed the line that we are losing (as was the case in Tet, when we had a HUGE military victory, that was lost by the politicians) they will support getting out.

[RKV]

And we need to be killing those young men at ratios of 1000 to 1 of our guys. Heavy weps please, and an ROE that allows us to use them.

[Night Hides Not]

Heavy weps please, and an ROE that allows us to use them.

What do you think of this?

My preferred strategy is a "total war" strategy, both military and diplomatic. Give McChrystal the 40K additional troops, more Predator sorties (followed by daisy cutters and bunker busters), more special ops and CIA activity, name names on who's supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda, throw a few billion of TARP money at Afghan farmers and tribal chieftains (then salt the $hit out of the poppy fields), give Karzai 12 months to "drain his swamp", and reassess the situation after 24 months.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"This is everything like Tet. Perception is reality, and even though we kick the Talibs from her to Islamabad, as long as the people are fed the line that we are losing (as was the case in Tet, when we had a HUGE military victory, that was lost by the politicians) they will support getting out."

The public support for the war has not fallen to the levels of support after Tet. There were mass demonstrations, you had a President toppled over the fallout from Tet. There has been nothing come close to that yet.

There is one interesting parallel to Viet Nam and the Tet fallout. The public did not really start going ballistic until that summer. Westmoreland and his Generals by summer saw the fallout of Tet and realized that the Viet Cong were no longer a fighting force. They were only fighting NVA regulars after Tet. They requested more forces (sound familiar?) to finish the job. That request for more forces combined with the public's perception of Khe Sahn turning into another Dien Bien Phu (remember Khe Sahn was the summer of 1968) was really the final straw.

So really, the only parallel I see is the General in the field requesting more troops. Johnson rebuffed Westmoreland and kicked him upstairs into the Pentagon signalling the drawdown of Viet Nam. Let's see what Obama's decision is.

[Kenny Bunk]

This after-action report is not all that good a bit of news.

We lost 8 KIA, 24 WIA, our allies lost 2 KIA and 13 MIA.

Attacking a fixed position with "hundreds" of insurgents, the bad guys should have lost many more than 100 to artillery fire, air strikes, and prepared static defenses like mines. Reading between the lines, this tells me that perhaps we were not fighting from a very well prepared defensive position and did not have immediate air and artillery support on tap.

And that is the main complaint in personal reports I have from two nephews involved in Afghanistan, namely that support missions take far too long in coming. The long distances they have to travel, and the cumbersome method of authorization up the chain of command are costing lives.

Our ROE processing has to be much more streamlined.
In regard to the 100 insurgents reported KIA: there is no way of knowing how many wounded were taken back by them, or how many bodies. Still, our combined NATO and Agfghan forces suffered at least 55 casualties. That ain't so good.

[ArrogantBustard]

I’m afraid this war will not be lost on the field of battle. This war may be lost in the White House.

Viet Nam was won on the battlefield ... then deliberately thrown away by the democRat controlled Congress.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

I agree. Our kill ratios should be much higher or there’s a problem somewhere with communication or supporting arms. I didn’t want to say that earlier because it sounds kind of callous. We should be over 50 - 1 kill ratio.

This sounds like a remote outpost. Part of McChrystal’s strategy needs to be to assess what we will actually defend. Unlike Iraq, the people are much more spread out and there are not as huge of built up centers of population. I’m sure the mountains are a problem for communications and helicopters. Also the remoteness of the area may mean our maps may not be as detailed as they need to be. Meaning our reliance on the local population is even more imporant than Iraq. Unfortunately, even with the surge we will not be able to defend every hamlet and village. We will have to be strategic in what and where we defend. Possibly get smaller villages to temporarily move to larger areas.

[MaxMax]

So now the Media will report the kills? Won’t this make our enemies Feeeeeel Bad?