"These men died in a good cause." No question. They are brave heroes who died fighting that others may live.
But quite honestly, I also had the same initial reaction as the author and I turned to my wife and said so. It has been obvious for some time that large numbers of Al Qaeda, including many senior commanders and staff, survived the initial campaign and are regrouping in remote eastern Afghanistan. The ambush of a special forces soldier near Khost a few weeks ago and continued air attacks on groups near Khost based on aerial surveillance were tip offs, to me anyway.
So, with sadness for lost comrades, I'm glad that Gen. Franks ordered the attack. Because I sure as hell don't want the Army to have to go back there and do this all over again because we didn't finish the job the first time.
Looks like there are going to be some important lessons learned from this – there’s that great problem of taking a relatively fragile box full of pers. and placing it on the ground in difficult terrain without ending up in your enemies KZ.
My first impression was that the MH-47’s might need more armament if they are going to fly missions like these – I don’t know much about the craft, and I first heard they carry a single door mounted 7.62mm GPMG.
It turns out they also carry two miniguns, which is a great leap in firepower, but probably not effective in suppressing multiple RPG/HMG pits – which is what you’d probably expect. I’m not too sure what arcs these things cover either – I recall hearing that Russian Hinds were fitted with rear facing guns to deal with ambushes.
I don’t know if observation can be bolstered, or more firepower added, but without knowing the full story, I think they may have to make a concession and stop operating these things in constricted terrain.