Dancing on their own grave
Jerry920 sent us this link to a story about how the US abandoned a base in Afghanistan and the Taliban danced around and celebrated their victory;
“We don’t want Americans, we don’t want Germans or any other foreigner. We don’t want foreigners, we want peace. We want Taliban and Islam — we don’t want anything else,” one local resident said on the tape.
Another man identified by Al-Jazeera as a local Taliban commander said the militants intended to use the base for attacks on U.S. forces.
Maj. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman for U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, said the Americans destroyed major firing positions and observation posts before they left, and if militants tried to use the base “we have two companies that can do an air assault there anytime we want.”
Did they think we threw away the grid coordinates to the place?
Category: Terror War
The point is not whether we could level it, but rather what the locals see. They see the US pull out and the Taliban come in and take over. So much for winning hearts and minds. They see the Taliban move back in after we leave; so who do you think the locals are going to side with?
The locals will go with however they perceive to be the winner. Look at it from their eyes…
Osama Bin Laden: “America appeared so mighty … but it was actually weak and cowardly. Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has. … It cannot stand against warriors of faith who do not fear death”
At the end of the day, this was a win for them and a loss for us.
Instead of running, we should have expanded the operation. We should have put a fricking Brigade in there.
Part of war is messaging. And our withdrawal sent the exact wrong message. This DOES strengthen them and weaken us.
That we have this place’s coordinates… or that we can run an air mobile operation is meaningless. We have the grid for the entire country… we can send in troops at a moment’s notice.
So what?
We put troops in there in the first place to take control away. They made it cost too much, so in their eyes, we tucked tail and ran.
The rest of it is meaningless drivel.
Sigh.
I built that damn base with my own hands back in 2006 before we turned the AO over to the Army , we told the korengali we weren’t gonna leave like the other units that went into the Korengal had done previously. Nothing pisses me off more than to see the Army fuck it all up and abandon it. We pacified the hell out of that valley before we had to turn it over. Seeing this just makes me sick.
All the lives lost. All the wounded. All of the countless days and nights with no running water, no showers, no hot meals, no contact with home for 6-8 weeks at a time, living in mud huts and tents at sub freezing temps and highs way over 100, hiking for hours day after day up and down those mountains at such high altitude with heavy gear on their backs…
I know they had limited time to get our men off of that post safely. And I know it was located very near a population center. But we bombed/leveled so many of the other COPs and firebases we abandoned. How could we leave this one like we did and allow the propaganda?
Time will tell if leaving the Korengal was the right decision. I pray it was. Right now I’m so angry about all of this I can’t see straight or even begin to reconcile this.
P. S. DisGRUNTled – THANK YOU for all you did and sacrificed in that God forsaken valley. Damn the valley
I wonder if this is the same guy in the early part of the video.
http://ko-kr.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5234227&id=114648515718
That would be kind of creepy, Sporkmaster, if it is. But it’s creepy even if it’s not, because their beards and hats and overall appearance is very similar. It would be hard to believe that there is really any kind of fundamental difference in their belief systems. (Not that it’s my intention to engage in profiling.)
If in fact the base that was abandoned has no real strategic value, then I don’t see what the problem is with abandoning it – though I can understand the emotional attachment that can develop. Apparently the decision was made to abandon these types of places quite a while ago by General McChrystal. It’s filled with Taliban fighters now? So…? Bomb it.
Also I have to ask is there any further doubt about the fact that Al-Jazeera is just a Taliban propaganda tool?
There plenty of value to have that base, without presence there, the Taliban and AQ mass forces and equipment and it gives them safe haven in the Kunar province to attack Blessing, Abad and Jbad. It was the whole reason for going in their in the first place. To deny them a safe place to stage their attacks. The pech river road was a bad place to drive down prior to us establishing that position in the Korengal. I don’t know if it got better after we left, but before you were practically guaranteed to get lit up if you traveld down the road during the day and at night progress was slow walking in front of the vehicles with engineers sweeping the road and running blackouts.
@Sporkmaster no that guy in the link is different from the one in the video, I do have a pic of the guy in the video though.
Well, what do you think General McChrystal’s plan is now?
His plan is really looking like the Soviet’s plan did, protect the large population centers while letting the enemy have pretty much unrestricted access to the rest of the country. Drones and bombers can only do so much.
Okay. That’s really great. The Soviet’s plan FAILED.