Posted on 09/16/2009 7:02:22 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
NATO-led forces are investigating the death of four Marines in eastern Afghanistan after their commanders reportedly rejected requests for artillery fire in a battle with insurgents, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. Tuesday's incident was "under investigation" and details remained unclear, press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news conference. A McClatchy newspapers' journalist who witnessed the battle reported that a team of Marine trainers made repeated appeals for air and artillery support after being pinned down by insurgents in the village of Ganjgal in eastern Kunar province. The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to come to their aid and their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties, the report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
I’ll assume at this point that you will continue to pretend that you didn’t get caught making contradictory claims and talking out of both sides of your mouth on this thread. You have showed that you will say anything and ignore your own words to cover up your misrepresentations.
Not only that but, when caught, you then try to hide behind the military code of justice even though your own behavior contradicts it. I’m amazed that it took you this long to figure out that the best thing for you to do is to shut up.
Unfortunately, I have to assume that you are representative of far too many military commanders and serve as evidence supporting my initial opinion. Nice job, chief.
You really think that a truck bomb attack on a base is the same thing as ROE that don’t allow our troops to come to the aid of the buddies that are in the middle of a firefight?
Now there are lots of things wrong with what went on in Lebanon. But I think you are comparing apples and oranges.
The ROE had nothing to do with Lebanon and everything to do with the ambush.
We chose to do that in Iraq because it was possible to do. I do not see that possibility in Afghanistan. They don't even have a history of anything but being a warlord rabble all the way to day one.
It appears that Mosque’s & Afghanistan civilians are more important than our soldiers lives. Is this new policy going to sacrifice our troops just so no harm is done to the Afghanistan populous? This policy reminds me of Vietnam, another useless war in which almost 60,000 young americans were killed.
If the RoE says they cannot engage the enemy when they are hiding in a Mosque, it will guarantee that the enemy hides in Mosques. If the RoE says that the soldiers cannot fire upon enemies hiding in civilian homes, it guarantees the enemy will invade homes of civilians.
These kinds of rules do not protect the Afghan population, they guarantee more danger for the Afghan population.
Maybe it is time to bring them home?
Did you see the article from the mclatchy reporter? It was posted on FR. I was in tears by the time I finished reading it.
New RoE’s that I heard of tell them not to engage enemies holding out in civilian homes. This might be an extension of that, this might have been a populated area.
Of course this guarantees the enemy is going to invade civilian homes and fight in heavily populated areas.
Why does this link not work for me?
'We're pinned down:' 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush
GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.
"We will do to you what we did to the Russians," the insurgent's leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.
Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.
U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village.
"We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We've lost today," Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter's repeated demands for helicopters.
Four U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday, the most U.S. service members assigned as trainers to the Afghan National Army to be lost in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Eight Afghan troops and police and the Marine commander's Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle that raged from dawn until 2 p.m. around this remote hamlet in eastern Kunar province, close to the Pakistan border.
---SNIP---
At 5:50 a.m., Army Capt. Will Swenson, of Seattle, WA, the trainer of the Afghan Border Police unit in Shakani, began calling for air support or artillery fire from a unit of the Army's 10th Mountain Division. The responses came back: No helicopters were available.
"This is unbelievable. We have a platoon (of Afghan army) out there and we've got no Hotel Echo," Swenson shouted above the din of gunfire, using the military acronym for high explosive artillery shells. "We're pinned down."
The insurgents were firing from inside the village and from positions in the hills immediately behind it and to either side. Judging from the angles of the ricochets, several appeared to be trying to outflank us to get better shots.
"What are you going to do?" Maj. Talib, the operations officer of the Afghan army unit, asked Maj. Williams through his translator.
"We are getting air," Williams replied.
"What are we going to do?" Talib repeated.
"We are getting air," Williams replied again, perhaps knowing that none was available but hoping to quiet Talib.
At 6:05 a.m., as our position was becoming increasingly tenuous, Swenson and Fabayo agreed that it was time to pull back and radioed for artillery to fire smoke rounds to mask our retreat.
---SNIP----
Do you have a ping list for this article?
“Ambushed Marines’ Aid Call ‘Rejected’ “
Follow up to
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2338347/posts?page=39#39
38#38 and 36#36
Commanders still have flexibility to engage and destroy enemy forces with superior firepower, ie..fire support, if necessary. Details not included for OPSEC reasons.
“Do you have a ping list for this article?”
No. But I’m on it.
Ping
Okay thanks..after reading some of the comments on this thread, I sure would like to see some of the reactions of the folks on the original thread.
Am pinging a few who were on the original thread or have ping lists..
ping from original thread... anyone have a ping list?
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