What is going around on Facebook: Village Razing by US troops.
I have a few friends on Facebook on the opposite side of the Afghanistan War so I get several links that pass around. This one caught my eye.
The Unforgivable Horror of Village Razing
Long story short is that the author is upset that we dealt the Taliban that kicked out the villagers and used their homes as weapons. But at a glance the article implies that we are randomly destroying villages to not “lose momentum”.
Of course when people have mentioned that the town was a bomb they just started the insults.
The point of these razing is not to hurt the people or even influence them – the purpose is to make safe the area for the civilians in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
They didn’t raze a harmless village. The village was turned into a massive bomb by the Taliban. The US forces destroyed a Taliban stronghold that just happened to have been a civilian town before. The Taliban are the enemy of the people here, not the US Soldiers. If the Taliban hadn’t filled the place with bombs, after kicking out the civilians, it wouldn’t have had to have been destroyed.
Here is another good one that the author does not consider.
Yes, the explosives imbedded in the village would have made it difficult for the soldiers to “clear it” safely – without assistance from the villagers, that is. You have to wonder, if the village was turned into a “massive bomb,” how were the villagers able to live in it? Surely a little effort at diplomacy would have yielded the neccessary information, building friendships instead of hostility.
I have seen it myself in Iraq in 2008. They drive out the local population and use the houses for House borne IEDs.
But since people will just look at the photos make a false assumption about what is going on in Afghanistan.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Terror War
I read the article earlier when you sent it to me and a couple of things struck me.
The author said the US soldiers were “scared” to go into the town and that’s why they blew it up. They weren’t scared, they were cautious. And since no Americans were killed and an unknown number of Taliban went to their reward, it was good tactics.
Another commenter said that they could have taken the time to disarm all of the bombs which would have precluded 49,000 pounds of ordinance and MICLICS being used to raze the town. Of course, they all admitted that US lives would have been lost, but the town didn’t have to be obliterated. WTF?
The author admits in the beginning that it was the Taliban who ran out the civilians (none of whom were killed in the battle, by the way) and chose the place to fortify.
Apparently a few buildings and trees are worth the unknown number of Americans who would have inevitably been killed.
Wonder if these same commentators watched the news out of San Diego back in November when law enforcement evacuated a neighbor surrounding a house they blew up after discovering a huge cache of unstable explosives in it?
Never mind, I bet Bill “The Assassin” Perry got that one started on Facebook, sounds right up his alley ya know. 8)
When I saw this, I was reminded of an engagement from WWII that I’ve read about: the battle of Monte Cassino. This was a Benedictine monastary-turned-fortress by the Germans, that had to be bombed into rubble to subdue it.
Jonn,
I re-posted this to Facebook and we shall see what happens.
Scott Camil is “The Assassin”, not Bill “Bug Out” Perry. Camil plotted to kill Congressmen who supported the Vietnam War. Perry testified at Winter Soldier that he let his platoon walk into an ambush while he hid out in Mamasan’s hut.
Eh, Jonn? Incoming, check your email tonight or tomorrow.
Such are the differences between ‘total’ wars and ‘limited’ wars Pinto.
We reduced more than one city to rubble during WWII in order to bend the enemy to our will. A large part of the effectiveness was due to convincing the local population it was in the civilian’s best interests to NOT support their home regime.
Nice to see you posting btw.
“Had to destroy the village to save the village”
Thanks, Jacobite…I’m kind of in a holding pattern (the new job thing), right now.
Three inbound to your personal addy, Jonn.