Ambush: Video Shows U.S. Troops Being Hunted, Killed

ABC News - The Blotter ^ | November 12, 2007 8:21 AM | Brian Ross

[james500]

Dramatic new video shows how American soldiers in Afghanistan are being set up for deadly ambushes after trying to make peace with village elders in Taliban-controlled areas.

The effort to win the "hearts and minds" of village elders in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province in Afghanistan has proved to be a dangerous one for U.S. troops, with elders often suspected of tipping Taliban fighters to the soldiers' schedule and whereabouts.

The video to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline" was shot by "Vanity Fair" contributing editor Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington embedded with the 2nd Platoon, Battle (B) company of the 173rd Airborne on a joint assignment for ABC News and "Vanity Fair" magazine.

[Mark was here]

I don't get it, are they for us or against us?

Yep, it not the media who is killing the troops, it is our trusted friends who follow the koran.

[Captainpaintball]

I hate to say this, but those at the "top of the food chain" are too PC, and too stupid (a DEADLY combination, but it is our troops who end up dying) to realize you can win the hearts and minds of those cavemen by bashing in their brains ad kicking their asses until they realize your way is better.

[Mopp4]

"Vanity Fair" contributing editor Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington embedded with the 2nd Platoon, Battle (B) company of the 173rd Airborne...

Looks like they were embedded with the Taliban instead....

[Berlin_Freeper]

How come they don’t have video of our Troops killing the bad guys? Must be too traumatic for them.

[wally_bert]

I would have and would not take any junk from some news jockey. Most of the ones I have known or had the misfortune to be around are mostly all mouth and ego. If I were threatened, I would tell them they were going to be sued. I have seen that shut one or two up.

Most of the working people I have run into while in TV/video are pretty level headed types, unlike the overpaid/hyped talent.

[Dog]

That was Peter Jennings

[StarCMC]

LOL!! I thought the same thing about this one...

What is ABC calling this the forgotten war? I haven't forgotten about it. It is ABC's choice whether or not to cover it. It was they who haven't been covering it, and with this lack of coverage THEY are the ones who have forgotten it. Now they are telling us that WE forgot it.

Posted by: Thor Zeneus | Nov 12, 2007 10:12:12 AM

[Doogle]

someone please send this story to Mark Levin,Rush,Sean....
my anger will not allow me to.....I will not longer follow this thread,least I be banned

[RC30]

Ok. I *think* you guys are jumping the gun. I’ll wait to watch the video. It looks like these guys were embedded with the unit and have video of an attack. I dont see that it says this camera crew had word of an attack and filmed the soldiers getting ambushed from a safe location. Sebastian Junger (author of the book “the perfect storm”) was part of the film crew. I think this could be really an interesting story. I say this too as somebody who dislikes the media, and I am in the National Guard and looking at gettig deployed late next year.

[StarCMC]

And this one....

Yet ANOTHER ABC LIE that gives aid & comfort to our enemies...ABC is a nest of traitors

Posted by: rex-baghdad | Nov 12, 2007 10:49:25 AM

[tomnbeverly]

Well one thing about our military it is an equal opportunity terrorist organization that is for sure.

[pburgh01]

Well besides the loathsome nature the journalsim they propaganda campaign is’nt working. Democrats are worried about the next election and their razor thin deep support. This whole WOT issue for them has been stepping in one pile of crap to another. The subprime loan crisis is too complicated to explain to most idiots walking around, people are’nt buying socialized medicine and most of str8 America has had it with the pink mafia(aka the Gay Lobby). The fleabag hippies who are foaming at the mouth libs and Hollywood just don’t add up to many votes. Even their anti-war movies are bombing, Lions for Lambs bombed at the box office making 1/4 the money that a movie about Santa Claus’ brother. Even Pittsburgh has the mayorial race a dead heat between a truely scuzzy incompetant riding the tails of another dead incompetant against a Republican who looks like he just graduated college.

[mware]

I thought it was, Jim. I think Donaldson was a part of the debate too. Wish that, that video was available.Any FReepers in their mid 50's should remember the debate. I was stunned when I listened to them.

[Triggerhippie]

That was Ethics in America (I and II) (Annenberg CPB).

As I recall there was a Marine Major on the show who really chafed upon listening to Mike Wallace’s mealy-mouthed BS about the “duty of a journalist”.

The media turds came off looking like the clymers that they are.

[tomnbeverly]

DUH... the media.... you see how hyped up I get with this insanity in the media... They should all be strung up for treason..

[Myrddin]

Words fail me.

Why? Is al taqqiya an unfamiliar concept?

[Dog]

Ben...take a few minutes and go read the comments on that site...ABC is getting their collective ass handed to them by the posters..

[stylin19a]

good memory..check out Col. Connell's reply:

On an edition of the PBS panel series Ethics in America, devoted to war coverage, which was taped at Harvard in late 1987, Wallace proclaimed that if he were traveling with enemy soldiers he would not warn U.S. soldiers of an impending ambush.

"Don't you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?", moderator Charles Ogletree Jr. suggested.

Without hesitating, Wallace responded: "No, you don't have higher duty...you're a reporter."
When Brent Scrowcroft, the then-future National Security Adviser, argued that "you're Americans first, and you're journalists second,"

Wallace was mystified by the concept, wondering "what in the world is wrong with photographing this attack by [the imaginary] North Kosanese on American soldiers?"

George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel, reacted with disdain: "I feel utter contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop, they're two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just journalists, they're not Americans." The discussion concluded as Connell fretted: "But I'll do it. And that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists."

[mware]

Thank you trigger. Now that you mention it I do recall the military officer and his comments regarding their ethics and journalism.

[mware]

That is three FReeper who remember that show, and it was at least 30 years ago.