Posted on 11/03/2001 6:04:22 AM PST by Diogenesis
MAG: 12 U.S. DELTA MEMBERS WOUNDED ON RAID OF OMAR'S COMPLEX, THREE SERIOUSLY; PENTAGON RETHINKS 'SPECIAL FORCES OPERATIONS'
Seymour Hersh has filed yet another controversial report for coming editons of the NEW YORKER, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
In ESCAPE AND EVASION, Hersh claims: In the wake of a near-disaster during the assault on Mullah Omar's complex during the early morning of October 20th, the Pentagon has been rethinking future Special Forces operations inside Afghanistan.
Delta Force, which prides itself on stealth, had been counterattacked by the Taliban, and some of the Americans had had to fight their way to safety. Hersh has filed his report for the November 12, 2001 issue of the NEW YORKER, on sale Monday.
Twelve Delta members were wounded, three of them seriously.
The intensity and ferocity of the Taliban response "scared the crap out of everyone," a senior military officer tells Hersh.
The Delta team stormed Mullah Omar's complex, but found little of value, Hersh reports, and then, "as they came out of the house, the shit hit the fan," one senior officer says. "It was like an ambush. The Taliban were fighting with light arms and either [rocket-propelled grenades] or mortars." The team immediately began taking casualties and evacuated.
"The Delta team was forced to abandon one of its objectives: the insertion of an undercover team into the area and the stay-behind soldiers fled to a previously determined rendezvous point, using a contingency plan known as an E. & E., for escape and evasion," Hersh writes.
One found Omars bowl of gruel too hot, the other found Omars bowl of gruel too cold and the rest found it to be juuuuuuuuuust right :o) Sad that media helps Taliban supporters spread propaganda...........
And any senior military officer that would leak, to of all people Seymour Hersh, would have to be a bottom of the barrel, gutless, backstabbing, Clinton promoted, piece of crap
Its true we will sustain casualties, and KIA's and probably some MIA's, this is the nature of war. But this guy paints a picture of doom and gloom, purposely trying to scare the american people and make them think we are in over our heads so to create opposition to the war by those scared americans.
This reporter could well have slanted it to make it look as it really was, an assault on the enemy by our brave special ops force and although they sustained light casualties, from heavy resistence of the Taliban, they accomplished their mission and extracted their forces from the area, with none killed. Although the special ops team met with an unsuspected heavy resistence, during the engagement hundreds of taliban soldiers are thought to have died.
Now thats the way to write this story, which is probably exactly the way it happened.
I thought it extremely obvious that this story sources ONLY "high level cover your ass policy types"!
Exactly -- you nailed it!
From salon.com, here is an excerpt from Salon's "Brillant Careers" section. This excerpt was about Hersh who I also believe uses "a portion of truth with a strong politically-motivated defeatist spin".
...So Hersh quit, and at columnist Mary McGrory's behest, went to work for Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign, convinced that the senator was the country's best bet to end the Vietnam War...
Were you there to count those rounds or were you merely relying upon Seymor Hersh's report? The number of rounds really doesn't matter. When you've been defeated by an overwhelming force, one is well advised not to antagonize that force by so much as breaking wind.
Yes, my thoughts exactly!
Does this even sound like a military officer? Doesn't to me. "Hey, we went in there and they had GUNS! GUNS I say. And they had live ammo. And it was all just a bit much. We had to lie down and take a brief respite."
The only person who can MAKE me "think we are in over our heads" is me. Reporters can report, writers can write; analysts can do all the analyzing they want. Only the weak of mind will fall sway to whatever bias exists in the words, the voice, the inflection of others.
I'm certain that you, as a free thinker and member of a great web community, will be able to accept the information in Hersh's story without becoming a victim of the "doom and gloom" you say Hersh is trying to peddle. Above all, however, let's agree that knowledge is our power. We should seek it from all sources and use our own reasoning, our own sense, to make decisions.
Eventually we will just make a black streaked pit out of Kandahar and Kabul. Should have been done 48 hours after the Taleban said no to turning over Bin Laden. We will still probably end up doing this.
David who? ;) Think about all thr reporters whose name you know by heart. Who are they with? What are their positions: politically and professionally? Conservatives learned a long time ago the corrollary to David's observation: that a reporter with an agenda will exploit the news to promote themselves.
Check this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3981e13c05fc.htm#3
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