Posted on 06/01/2018 8:33:06 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
At the outpost, American soldiers watched a column of tanks and other armored vehicles turn and drive toward them around 10 p.m., emerging from a neighborhood of houses where they had tried to gather undetected.
A half-hour later, the Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces struck.
The Conoco outpost was hit with a mixture of tank fire, large artillery and mortar rounds, the documents show. The air was filled with dust and shrapnel. The American commandos took cover, then ran behind dirt berms to fire anti-tank missiles and machine guns at the advancing column of armored vehicles.
For the first 15 minutes, American military officials called their Russian counterparts and urged them to stop the attack. When that failed, American troops fired warning shots at a group of vehicles and a howitzer.
Still the troops advanced.
American warplanes arrived in waves, including Reaper drones, F-22 stealth fighter jets, F-15E Strike Fighters, B-52 bombers, AC-130 gunships and AH-64 Apache helicopters. For the next three hours, American officials said, scores of strikes pummeled enemy troops, tanks and other vehicles. Marine rocket artillery was fired from the ground.
The reaction team sped toward the fight. It was dark, according to the documents, and the roads were littered with felled power lines and shell craters. The 20-mile drive was made all the more difficult since the trucks did not turn on their headlights, relying solely on thermal-imaging cameras to navigate.
As the Green Berets and Marines neared the Conoco plant around 11:30 p.m., they were forced to stop. The barrage of artillery was too dangerous to drive through until airstrikes silenced the enemys howitzers and tanks.
At the plant, the commandos were pinned down by enemy artillery and burning through ammunition. Flashes from tank muzzles, antiaircraft weapons and machine guns lit up the air.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
To begin with... “Comandos” is a British term.. NYSlimes need to get that straight..
Next, who is trying to start the “Cold War”! again?
And, (obviously, journoLISTS) fail to understand that, of COURSE, no lights (half lights) is very normal for anyone that is under the threat of taking fire/bombarment.. just like when we stop to check coordinates, the lights are red, so that we a difficult to spot :p
[So remind me: what are the strategic interests of the US in Syria, and why are we wasting taxpayer money and US lives there?]
From a big picture perspective, it is always in the American interest to see foreign countries fragmented, which is why American support for the EU *never* made sense. We provide a security umbrella for the oil-producing Gulf kingdoms for the same reason we balked when Germany attempted to conquer Europe in WWI and WWII. You never want any power to form a single large empire that could eventually turn its attention to you. Without Uncle Sam in the Gulf region, I expect the entire region would rapidly become provinces in either an Egyptian, Iranian or Iraqi empire. Forestalling that possibility was why Bush pushed Iraq out of Kuwait, not any kind of love for the Kuwaiti royals.
If Hillary was CIC, we would have had another Benghazi, but on a much larger scale. She would never have authorized the kind of response Mad Dog did. Then she would have lied about it and blamed everyone else.
Warning shots??? I think I see a problem.
There was no miscommunication. We contacted the Russian government, and the Russians said it wasnt them; So it was game on. The Russians had no reason to complain; and they didnt.
Our media can not mention that because of the inconvenient fact that it was the progressive triumvirate of Obama, Hitlery and Kerry that put those troops there with addlepatted McCain cheering from the side.
The American people specifically and overwhelmingly said “NO!” to this war when Obama and Kerry and McCain tried to sell it to us with fraud.
Therefore, none of your listed concerns is US business. That US troops are where they should not be is what our business actually is.
Something a loyal American should have no problem understanding in full.
More collusion with Trump. /s
The Iranians are bringing back the days of the Sassanids with their control of the Middle East in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are understandably freaked.
If Iran gets control of all that oil, enjoy your donkey and living in a yurt with no air conditioning.
Who at the NYT authorized an article highlighting an American success?
Glad the US kicked some rear end, and will this now shut up the Russian collusion people?
I think that was ignored in most cases, but still it was SOP.
[Therefore, none of your listed concerns is US business. That US troops are where they should not be is what our business actually is.]
Well, yeah, I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that a score of 2-300 to zip might indicate that a little tactical refinement is necessary.
I think a big part of the shift in the polls shown below has to do with GOP support for intervention. I was against Obama intervening because I thought he would do half-assed job with ROE’s that would get GI’s killed. Trump, on the other hand, is all about force protection. His stance appears to be - if enemy civilians are being used as human shields by their loved ones and they get killed, they get killed. Bottom line is that our guys are worth more than their guys, military or civilian, because they’re *our* guys. Which is fine with me.
This mirrored results of another recent poll from CBS News in which 57% of Americans said they approved of the US strike. A Pew Research Center survey from this week showed a similar level of support, with 58% of Americans approving of the strike.
The recent polls hint at changing American thought on involvement in Syria.
In 2013, after another brutal chemical weapons attack linked to the Assad regime, only 36% of Americans said they favored the US taking military action to reduce the Syrian government’s ability to use chemical weapons. Gallup noted that it was “among the lowest” figure of support “for any intervention Gallup has asked about in the last 20 years.”
In another Gallup poll from earlier that year, before the chemical attack, 68% of Americans said they opposed military action to end the Syrian conflict even if “all economic and diplomatic efforts fail.”]
Challenge?
They were defending the Conoco plant.
Outcome considerably different than Benghazi...
[Outcome considerably different than Benghazi...]
When was this event?
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