"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" -Oscar Wilde |
"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." -- Proverbs 11:25 |
In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 31 Americans and 7 Afghan commandos on board, American and Afghan officials said. American officials said later Saturday that 22 of the dead were members of a Navy SEAL unit, along with other American servicemembers and the Afghan unit. The helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province to the west of Kabul, one coalition official said, though others said the exact weapon remained in question.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which punctuated a surge of violence across the country, even as American and NATO forces begin a modest drawdown of troops. It occurred after a night raid, a tool that has been praised by American commanders as one of the most effective in the recent military offensive, though the raids have been heavily criticized by Afghan officials and civilians.
The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among the 31 U.S. soldiers lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
The operators from SEAL Team Six were flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. That's according to one current and one former U.S. official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified of the loss of their loved ones. One source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.
Labels: Afghanistan, futility, the so-called war on terror
Genghis Khan couldn't "civilize" them. The Persians couldn't. The British certainly couldn't. The Russians have failed TWICE. And now the Americans are trying.
In the words of George Santayana,
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And while I KNOW that Americans don't study history -- do they study anything useful anymore? -- surely SOMEONE today still remembers the Russian Afghan adventure.
Let them be ignorant and poor. I would remind everyone that the 12th century is hardly a place that anyone else would want to live today -- except some of the current members of the Republican party, but we don't want to 'go there' -- and there is nothing there that could possibly be of any concern to us today. So let them live their feudal existence herding camels.....
mrs. jp
I was blaming it on the solar flares.
I'm about to explode.
More and more it becomes clear that our nation is suicidal.