Posted on 09/09/2009 1:03:26 AM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
KABUL — British commandos freed a New York Times reporter early Wednesday from Taliban captives who kidnapped him over the weekend in northern Afghanistan, but one of the commandos and a Times' translator were killed in the rescue, officials said.
Reporter Stephen Farrell was taken hostage along with his translator in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday. German commanders had ordered U.S. jets to drop bombs on two hijacked fuel tankers, causing a number of civilian casualties, and reporters traveled to the area to cover the story
Two military officials told The Associated Press that one British commando died during the early morning raid. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the death had not been officially announced.
The Times reported that Farrell's Afghan translator, Sultan Munadi, also was killed.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Totally tragic with no happy ending.
(With apologies to Kipling, but I think he'd understand.)
Why do I wonder if the loss of one commando was worth the rescue of one NYT reporter?
Now watch the NYT pour on appreciation and sorrow for the death of this soldier in saving one of their own. Watch very closely, or you might miss it.
TC
Thank you for the Kipling quote. I very much enjoyed that. I have Kipling's poem "If" in a little booklet that I keep by my computer. A friend gave it to me over 40 years ago. I am afraid I was too young to enjoy it at the time. I didn't care for poetry. But I kept the present all the same. I'm not even sure why. And it turns out that time has taught me a thing or two about the power of words. Some things can only be said well in a poem. I would like to quote the poem here:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Talk about about a waste of a good man for a worthless POS!!! ANY NYT reporter[sic] should be on notice that if detained by a friend/source or group of friends/sources in the Taliban, Al Quaida or other rag-head group, depend on the HNIC (the N refers to Narcissist) for his release and certainly not members of the SAS, Seals, Marine Recon, etc. Maybe, Michelle “Big Arms” Obama will fly in for the rescue between dates in the Big Apple.
Hell no.
Seems strange the enemy would bother kidnapping their own propagandists.
Must have been some affirmative action Taliban.
We know that Farrell wasn’t just embedded with the Taliban how?
Serendipity! May I refer you to a post I wrote just yesterday.
What I've posted here is actually a slight adaptation of some lines of one of Kipling's poems - the reason I apologised although as I said, I'm sure he'd understand why I appropriated them. It's a poem that doesn't get quoted much any more, because of its racial overtones, but it rings true very much today. He wrote in 1899 directed at the United States - he foresaw that the United States was going to be put into the situation that the British Empire had found itself in - a nation that found itself having to save and protect others, but earning their contempt by doing so.
Was it worth his life to rescue a Timesman from his folly? Now, that's debatable. But actually there were two men kidnapped, including the Afghan driver, who was also killed.
Pres. Obama and co. are going to have to start listening to McChrystal very closely, and then implementing successfully. The Taliban and their loathesome friends started all this, from camps in Afghanistan. This is where the rubber meets the road.
Sorry about your countryman. I'm sure it looked like a good op going in .... if potentially a poor trade.
Wonder if the NY Slimes will be posting a photo of the dying British commando.
No reporter is worth a soldiers life.
I’ll slap my kids head silly if they ever dream of being a “reporter”. Totally sad.
No Greater Love.
God Bless them.
I wouldn’t worry about it, your kids are/will be capable enough not to have to go to journalism school. That’s for hoplophobes who can’t master the Frymaster 3000.
He should be made to apoligize to the soldiers family.
A parallel thread notes that the NY Slime didn’t mention the commando until paragraph 3 (although it seems the NYS is moving paragraphs around as folks complain):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2335327/posts
The “driver/translator” was actually an Afghani Journalist Student who studied in Germany. He wrote that article 7 days ago before he was killed. Sultan M. Munadi sounded like a decent human being who loved his country.
“Those times are past now. Now I am hopeful of a better situation. And if I leave this country, if other people like me leave this country, who will come to Afghanistan? Will it be the Taliban who come to govern this country? That is why I want to come back, even if it means cleaning the streets of Kabul.”
Do you know if it was 22SAS or are you speculating?
“No reporter is worth a soldiers life.”
Amen to that.
The New York Time reporter WAS NOT worth the life of this Heroic British Commando. To the British family who scarified so much for so little, you have my deepest heartfelt condolences. I would like to thank the Soldier for doing his duty. He is an example to the metro-sexual, hypocritical liberal news organization, whose member he helped rescue. May his heroic death serve as a learning moment to these cowardly, selfish, short sighted, lying, progressive basturds.
I personally would have let the Taliban have him.
Wonderful. Now the NY Times reporter can trash the soldier that died for him.
>>”Sultan M. Munadi sounded like a decent human being who loved his country.”
HIS life may well have been worth the risk. But his death was inevitable, if premature. As someone who could read and write, AND anti- Taliban, he would have been marked for death as soon as we leave — just as the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia. Starting with anyone who wore glasses, i.e. an obvious intellectual.
DG
Those who appreciate the work of Michael Yon might not agree with you...
<smile>That sounds like an outstanding school.</smile>
I am quite frankly shocked that a school like that exists today. But perhaps Australia will survive long after America falls. Thanks for quoting the poem. I have seen references to it but never read the full poem until now. Yes, I think it rings true today, particularly if someone can accept the unvarnished truth. All cultures are not equal. Some are superior to others. Hierarchy is not a four-letter word.
RIP.
My information is it was SBS, but that’s just a strong rumour, not confirmed fact.
that reporter was in all likelihood not worth the loss of that commando’s hangnail
sad..very sad
Looks like a victory for the Taliban! We sacrifice two DECENT people to save one dirty JOURNALIST.
No, but "rank" is. As in, "rank order of dominance" -- which is the social order that our Patriots rebelled against in trhe 1770's, and which the Pioneers rebelled against when they crossed the Appalachian Mountains and passed out of contact with the old, "deferential society" of the Eastern Seaboard states. They would rather plunge into a wilderness and deal with the Creeks, the Shawnees, and the Hurons than suffer any longer the pretensions of lawyers, doctors, and businessmen with money in the bank.
That is your liberty heritage. Not primogeniture and social Darwinism, which is just the SOS from the last 8000 years.
The revolution of 1776 was against a crown, not against a hierarchy of ideas. The US is still fundamentally English, animated by ideas that only an English-speaking people could articulate and promote to regulate the affairs of its citizens. As for the people who colonized the Midwest and West, they colonized as English-speaking Americans, not Indians. Those pioneers might have lived simply, but they subscribed to a hierarchy of ideas that made superior to the Indians. And no apologies necessary for being superior.
I read today it was Royal Marines and Parachute Regiment flown in US craft (probably 160th SOAR).
Thanks.
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