We're going to lose people. That's a fact. It doesn't make us weaker to accept the fact; we're only weaker when we fall under the sway of propoganda -- theirs or ours -- and refuse to listen to anyone who doesn't kowtow to those lines.
Keep reporting, Hersh. We may not like what's coming out. But better to be informed than to clap our ears shut and huddle in ignorance.
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.
Furthremore it is dangerous. Great tactics are not thought up in a vacuum... they are learned through application on the battle-field. Not to learn from one's mistakes is not bravery - it is stupidity of the worst sort. Our job isn't to get American's killed. It is to acheive and objective with the least possible cost in blood, treasure, and the lives of cjountry.