Posted on 10/11/2010 3:42:06 PM PDT by earlJam
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday that a British aid worker killed in an American rescue raid in Afghanistan last week may have been killed by a grenade detonated by a United States special forces unit — not in an explosion of a suicide bomber’s vest detonated by her Taliban captors, as the American command in Afghanistan suggested when it confirmed her death on Saturday.
A grim-faced Mr. Cameron appeared at a news conference at 10 Downing Street to say he had learned of “this deeply distressing development” Monday from the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who told him that an American-led review of the raid to rescue the aid worker, Linda Norgrove, “has revealed evidence to indicate that Linda may not have died at the hands of her captors as originally believed.”
He added: “That evidence and subsequent interviews with the personnel involved” — believed to have included a Navy Seals unit specializing in hostage rescues that has participated in numerous special forces raids in Afghanistan — “suggest that Linda could have died as a result of a grenade detonated by the task force during the assault. However, this is not certain and a full U.S./U.K. investigation will now be launched.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Something like this really shouldn't be news until its a proven fact. Such reporting is intended simply to inflame. IMO.
How heavily into the fighting are the other NATO countries? It is my understanding the are relegated mostly to logistics, maintenance, etc.
Even the best laid plans go out the window quickly in this type of rescue effort.Sorry I didn't know you were an expert on rescue missions and Carter diplomacyBesides that, if this were a carter effort we would already be apologizing to the taliban and begging them to be nice.
Sorry to hear this, but in a war zone Stuff happens.
Prime Minister David Cameron... learned of "this deeply distressing development" Monday from the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who told him that an American-led review of the raid to rescue the aid worker, Linda Norgrove, "has revealed evidence to indicate that Linda may not have died at the hands of her captors as originally believed."
The Brits should have been in charge of that.Their citizen...their forces.They get the glory if they succeed...they get the blame if they don’t.
That hasn’t really answered my question, all I got from that article is the subjective opinion that the LibDems (whom Cameron was forced to go into coalition with) are ‘anti-american’...
It was an area within the American theatre of operations, and they knew the area best, thats why they carried out the operation...
“She died because the taliban took her hostage. If they had not done that then no harm would have been done to her.”
Thank you!
British and Canadian forces have been based in Helmand and Khandahar, two of the most violent provinces in the whole country. They have most definitely been at the sharp end of the fight. British forces in particular have been involved in particularly intense fighting, although that is largely thanks to their crappy equipment and poor logistical support courtesy of the late and unlamented Nu-Lab government which meant they had to fight like the redcoats at Rorke’s Drift on many occasions...
Do you know how counterinsurgency is conducted? Read FM 3-24. She was a member of DAI Corp, working with the US Agency for International Development (USAID). 3 prongs of counterinsurgency: US/NATO forces, US Dept of State, USAID. She was a member of a critical team in the Afgan effort.
Cameron was merely relating what Petreaus had told him. He is annoyed by the fact that he had orginally been given catagorical assurances that the captors had detonated a sucide vest that killed her, and he related this to the press, only to be informed later that this may not actually have been true.
Correcting what he had previously believed to be the truth is not a symptom of anti-americanism, he has already commended the US forces for trying to do a difficult job in extremely difficult circumstances...
Next step: international outcry, indictments and a murder trial for the US troops.
Tough, tough situation. But again prayers and Thanks for those shooters who put their lives on the line in trying to bring her back.....The notion that Afghan elders were going to be able to talk her to freedom is BS. Not in this area of Stan.
Agree
Cameron is anti-America. His conduct is not that of a Nato Ally.He was not merely doing anything. Hardly merely.
Trascend your jingoism and read a little.
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David Cameron’s speech this week confirmed the worst suspicions about the trajectory of the new touchy-feelygreenyleftytrendy Tory party. It played to the gallery of the rampant anti-Americanism now poisoning British public debate. At such a time, with the forces of appeasement and prejudice against America and Israel on the rampage in Britain and threatening to bring about our defeat in the war being waged against our civilisation, there is an urgent need for a statesman to deliver the kind of leadership which can turn the nation away from the cultural cliff-edge towards which it is hurtling.
Instead Cameron’s speech — delivered in the most insulting manner possible, on 9/11 — blamed anti-Americanism on America itself. True, he condemned anti-Americanism as ‘complacent cowardice’ and ‘an intellectual and moral surrender’ — but then proceeded to blame it on America’s foreign policy. Well which was it — complacent and cowardly, or a reaction to America’s gross mistakes? Because it can’t be both.
Although he very carefully did not spell out what he would have done differently, his implicit target was the war in Iraq. ‘Bombs and missiles’, he said, ‘are bad ambassadors …There are more tools of statecraft than military power’. But military power was only used in Iraq after 12 years of failed UN statecraft. Certainly, the US made a bad mistake in failing to grasp the need to build the institutions of civic society in Iraq. According to Cameron, what is required in these circumstances is ‘humility and patience’. But war has raged in Iraq because of an all-out attempt by al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and the Ba’ath remnant to prevent a free society being established. What was needed to deal with this was not ‘humility and patience’ but more troops, for heaven’s sake. The problem with the so-called defence of the west is not military action but the fact that it’s been so half-hearted. As for ‘patience’ over Iran— aka chronic failure by America to act, despite years of attacks and provocation — we’ve had that in spades. And look where it’s got us.
The claim that anti-Americanism is being driven by US foreign policy is demonstrably absurd, since on 9/11 itself people in Britain were telling each other that America ‘had it coming’. The bile was spewing out in Britain even before the aftermath. Cameron actually blamed neo-conservatives for the abrupt change in US foreign policy even though this was caused not by these most ignorantly traduced thinkers but by one factor alone — 9/11 which, as President Bush said in his address this week, instantaneously altered the entire calibration of risk which had underpinned foreign policy assumptions for the previous 60 years.
The speech was contradictory and incoherent since Cameron was at pains to agree with the war in Iraq even while he condemned ‘bombs and missiles’; said the UN was the solution to conflict even while he dismissed it as useless; said the neocons were right even though they were wrong; and said anti-Americanism was an intellectual and moral surrender even while he was provoking yet more of it. In short it was disgraceful opportunism, all the more so for stoking up dangerous prejudices at such a parlous moment in the fortunes of the west.
He pretended to be merely proposing a more candid relationship with America. Yes, America made grievous mistakes after the fall of Baghdad. But how does Cameron know Tony Blair was not candid in private with President Bush about such matters? What possible merit is there in having a public row with your major ally in the middle of a war? Isn’t Cameron aware even of that most basic rule of war-time discipline? And what exactly would he have done differently? What would he have done in the face of the US determination to proceed in the way it did? Not invade Iraq? He says he still supports the invasion. Flounce out of the coalition after the fall of Baghdad, saying it’s either Rumsfeld or me? Of course not.
On the day that Cameron was proving himself to be not up to the call of history, President Bush made a fine speech which gave the lie to such crude and populist prejudices by spelling out just what the Iraq war represents:
The terrorists fear freedom as much as they do our firepower. They are thrown into panic at the sight of an old man pulling the election lever, girls enrolling in schools, or families worshiping God in their own traditions. They know that given a choice, people will choose freedom over their extremist ideology. So their answer is to deny people this choice by raging against the forces of freedom and moderation. This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations. And we’re fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom and tolerance and personal dignity.
We are now in the early hours of this struggle between tyranny and freedom. Amid the violence, some question whether the people of the Middle East want their freedom, and whether the forces of moderation can prevail. For 60 years, these doubts guided our policies in the Middle East. And then, on a bright September morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. Years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. So we changed our policies, and committed America’s influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism.
In Isaiah Berlin’s famous image, President Bush is the hedgehog who understands one big thing: the need to defeat this enemy before it defeats us. Tony Blair also understands that big thing. Cameron has shown he does not. Douglas Murray, author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, has subjected the speech to a furious denunciation — pointing out also the way it calls Israel’s self-defence against Hezbollah ‘disproportionate’ — and saying that it disqualifies the Tories from running the country. And the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) wrote in a withering editorial:
We won’t soon forget David Cameron’s debutante performance. The 39-year-old Tory leader claimed Britain and the U.S. had become ‘uncritical allies’ and needed ‘a rebalanced special relationship.’ In a line that must play well with London focus groups, he said: ‘We should be solid but not slavish in our friendship with America.’ Though his party backed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Cameron vouchsafed that they now show that democracy ‘cannot quickly [be] imposed from the outside.’ Thanks for the Monday-morning generalship.
On the day marking the worst terrorist atrocity in history, he even chided the U.S. for ‘stoop[ing] to illiberalism’ by running a prison in Guantanamo, where the men who planned 9/11 were just transferred and where no human rights abuses have been found. This Tory wants a ‘a new emphasis on multilateralism’ where the U.N. ‘confers the ultimate legitimacy.’ If these are the new Tories, we’ll take the French. (As it happens, French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy marked 9/11 in New York by saying, ‘Yes, I love the Americans.’)
Cooling the Special Relationship would be a disaster for Britain. If the Tories fondly believe they can play to the anti-American madness AND still be America’s best friend, they are sadly mistaken. That sound you can hear is Washington’s door snapping shut.
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1329
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http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/02/david-cameron-on-tea-parties/
http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/freegary/
Sorry, no place there for noncombatant community organizers.
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