Posted on 08/08/2011 5:05:26 AM PDT by 1066AD
"Now it's confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said the commander lured US forces to the scene by telling them there was a Taliban meeting taking place there.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
We can’t win a war when we don’t know who the enemy is.
///
great point!
and this is not a war on “terror”.
Sun-Tzu is still taught in our Academies.
knowing your enemy is essential. the Taliban are not a “tiny minority misunderstanding their religion”.
a “moderate” Imam near D.C., told me that Osama bin Laden was NOT misunderstanding Islam. that in fact, he was correct.
until we stop believing the taquiyya and kitman,
and understand and admit the role Islam itself plays,
we cannot win “hearts and minds”, or make good strategy.
A highly specialized team, going to insertion, and no gunship tac trail? No C & C orbiting higher, No AWACS layered eyes? RPG's are point and shoot. Either the bird comes close to the ground because it is flying over a mountain, or it is on approach, otherwise, no can hit the hook.
I could imagine a scenario whereby they were planning on a stealth insertion, but would still have tac trail, perhaps higher in the form of a fast mover, and had their plans compromised, thus flying into a hasty ambush.
Many questions, here.
I agree. The Rules of Engagement need to change allowing fast and furious direct support by air and artillery. IOW, release the military to fight the fight.
Politics is the worst kind of friendly fire. And it is killing our finest.
I caught part of that interview too but Matt kept cutting him off while he was talking. Has a transcript or the video pooped up yet? Sounded to me like he was calling the current administration a bunch of sheep or sheeple.
I’d start looking 10 time zones to the West.
Deleted from the interview the today show posted, but I found the transcript that was edited out.
Matt: mr. vaughn , i was reading about your son. and, boy, he was an impressive young man as a child, as a young adult , as a son, as a father, as a husband. he was a young man who stood out. why did he want to be a s.e.a.l.?
Mr Vaughn: >> matt, i can just tell you that after 9/11 aaron told me and his mother that he wanted to be a s.e.a.l. and he said that he had wanted to ever since he was a little boy . and aaron , if i can just say it, god bless him, he loved his country, he loved god, he loved kimberly , and he loved reagan and chamberlain, and he honestly believed and saw black and white that what we were involved in, and he told me this, is a war for survival of our republic. aaron knows that the war, islamic fundamentalism , radicalism has gone on for hundreds of years if not thousands. and it can be traced through history. and he felt, and so did the other members of his team, felt that the very existence of our republic is at stake. and because of that, aaron was willing to give his life. and what i have to say is that s.e.a.l. team six, i just know those men felt the same way and they see it clearly, they see it black and white . so many of us don’t. aaron told me right out of his own mouth that he had a class where he said, dad, there’s three kinds — the man told us there are three kinds of people in the world, sheep dogs, sheep, and wolves. i can honestly say that s.e.a.l. team six are the desheep dogs. sheep dogs always see the warning, black and white , clearly. most of us are sheep. we don’t usually see it.
Matt:>> karen —
Mr Vaughn:>> and there are some wolves out there —
Matt:>> go ahead, sir. i’m sorry.
Mr. Vaughn:>> there are wolves out there, and aaron explained it to me. and, you know, it’s really strange, matt, that — that 90 some odd days ago s.e.a.l. team six had a big victory and possibly sheep in higher places said things what made many of us very uncomfortable. and now some 90 some odd days later s.e.a.l. team six has suffered a terrible tragedy. i just pray that during these last days, these next days, they will allow s.e.a.l. team six, the wives, the children, the families to grieve, to bury their dead, and not make it political.
Many questions....and to date....no plausible answers.
Who...if anyone....is investigating?
Yes. I've observed vast numbers of missions with only Chinooks, Blackhawks, little birds, or any combination of the above. It's always at the mission's requirements and available resources. Wardak is right next to Bagram and Shank (the two big air hubs in RC-E), meaning they could have taken their pick of any number of airframes.
Who is the commander who ordered this? Is he/she being held accountable for this decision?
No. Airlift is airlift. The military ordered Chinooks for a reason. The fact that they occasionally get shot down doesn't negate the overall need for massing troops into a single airframe.
As an example, due to altitude, tiny landing zones on mountainous areas, or any number of reasons, it may have been more or less advantageous to use one large Chinook for their IRF team. Not being the commander on the ground, there's dozens of factors we're not seeing, and only one that we are. It's easy to sharpshoot that one, more so today, but these guys run these types of missions every night. If they choose a certain air frame, it's because it's the tool they desired for that mission.
Just normal practice these days. We have to notify Afghan officials when we do operations now. That means that the Afghan government (and the Taliban) have a better line on what our high level SOF units are up to than the rest of the military, or the U.S. at large.
You are completely correct, but that's not exactly what the article is hinting at. Let me clarify.
The Taliban commander fed information into our intelligence collection architecture. It doesn't say how, but that point doesn't matter. We have eyes and ears, real and electronic, all over the place. The Taliban know we watch them, and they know certain actions will get our attention. Senior leader Taliban meetings being a big one, obviously.
What this means is that the Taliban is becoming very sophisticated at figuring out how to leave bait that our HUMINT, SIGINT and other intel vacuums side will take up and accept as valid. If they feed information to HUMINT sources we trust, and wires we listen to, they can lure us wherever they want.
Of the 22 NSW (Naval Special Warfare) members killed, 5 were direct support personnel and 17 were SEALs: 2 from a W Coast SEAL unit, and 15 from Gold Squadron of NSW Development Group, or DevGru, that has been called "SEAL Team 6" although such an operational name does not actually exist, it is a creation of the media and VP Biden.
DevGru consists of 4 "line squadrons": Blue, Gold, Red and Silver and the recon Black Squadron.
Each of the 4 line squadrons has three troops of usually 15 troops each. The 15 SEALs killed were an entire troop of Gold Squadron.
The 8 other US casualties were the 5 aircrew and 3 AF combat air controllers.
The aircraft and personnel were not a "quick reaction force" as has been reported but rather an “immediate reaction force” that was a part of the mission plan and onsite during the planned Army Special forces raid underway.
They had been on the ground for about two hours and were leaving when apparently, waiting for confirmation on this, a hostile fighter fired an RPG that hit the ascending aircraft.
There is much more to be said but I'll close by sending my deepest sympathy to the families of these patriots and warriors.
Thank you for the first answer I’ve seen posted that actually makes sense....a very terrible and tragic sense tho.
Not necessarily, althought it may be a confusing of terms by our friends in the media. It seems that the Ranger element was conducting the raid, or had otherwise hit contact. The SEAL element appeared to have been either the IRF/QRF backup, or possibly the main element of the raid that was moving into support the Ranger cordon that landed first and hit contact. 'Rescue' is probably journalist shorthand for hairs we might have split a lot finer in the military.
Would 20 Seal Team members suit up to provide reinforcement for a pinned down Ranger team? I’m more given to believing that Rangers would mount up to relieve Rangers. They are rock solid about “leave no man behind.”
It seems they were all part of the same operation, which is not uncommon. Even as the 'rescue' appears more of a reinforcements plan with teams already in place kicking in to support the element in contact.
I have a pretty clear idea of what these next three answers are, but for the purpose of loose lips, I'm going to go with the abridged versions.
The questions would then remain how they planted intel with our SpecOps,
Trial and error. Feed us enough bait, see what we sniff and ignore, and what we eat, and sooner or later, you've got us.
how they knew the route the Seals would take,
Observation of our TTPs, based off of our actions in similar terrain. They likely picked a 'meeting spot' ambush site in terrain that only had one really good infil route.
and why the mission might have required a single airframe inserting a fairly large force.
Good old METT-TC there. Why the commanders went with that airframe over others is dependent on factors we don't know. It's certainly not unusual to fly Chinooks in Afghanistan.
Thanks, Gandalf. Do you know if it was NightStalker Chinook? I’m assuming it was.
If this airframe was on site during the Ranger operation, any idea if they also were the planned transport for the Rangers?
Are the Rangers safe?
see #51 above if you weren’t pinged
It was not.
"any idea if they also were the planned transport for the Rangers?"
The SF Ranger unit had it's own transport and all returned safely.
Good news about the Ranger unit. Thanks.
When we supplied Stingers to the Muj, I was assured that the weapons were designed to degrade into uselessness within five years, but I found that hard to believe back then and still do.
What happened to the “rescue mission”? If we got intel about a big Taliban meeting we would have sent a couple of missles in there, not a SEAL team. I don’t think I’m buying this new story.
Danke.
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