Posted on 08/16/2012 6:21:02 AM PDT by Lazamataz
August 16, 2012: Seven American soldiers were killed Thursday when their helicopter crashed in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter, although the insurgency often exaggerates its victories and is quick to claim responsibility for any incident involving foreign troop deaths.
The area where the helicopter went down is an insurgent hotbed and supply route, lying north of Kandahar city near volatile Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.
This story is still developing. R.I.P.
“That sh*thole is not worth one drop of American Blood.”
Amen to that, as well.
The other lesson is that I seem to remember in election season '08 a day-to-day Afghan/Iraq casualty count by all three major nets nightly.
We’re not fighting an ideology. They, the muslims, know we’re not fighting their religion. This is just some old criminals trying to hold on to their power. If you throw a life preserver to a drowning man and he tries to shoot you for doing it, then let him drown. Let the Afghans drown.
My nephew is due to return from his first combat tour from Afghanistan in late August...
I’m sure he and his unit WILL be fine until then...
USA TODAY reporting Black Hawk down in Kandahar Province. Taliban claims they shot it down. Investigation ongoing...
SO SAD!
DITTO!
As a active duty service family, I would have to say that this country has been safer because of President’s decisions. We knew that it was going to be a very long haul. No regrets.
EXACTLT!
President Bush’s decisions. Correction
WTH is going on here? “President Bush shouldn’t have started this war”? “The country would have been better off if President Bush would have done nothing after 9-11”?
Anybody here at FR remember exactly who started this war? IIRC WE WERE ATTACKED. So now you all think we should have just sat on our asses and not “waste precious blood”.
As a retired soldier and current government contractor I can fully appreciate and agree with condeming the PC Bullshit that has corrupted our mission and conduct of operations. I can and will call out the current POSHMFIC and the limp-wristed Pentagon Rump Rangers who care more about world opinion than accomplishing the mission.
But I’ll be Goddamned if I’m going to sit idly by and listen to a bunch of handwringers whine about why we’re there! We need to rain such hell on the terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and anywhere else they hide that they beg for mercy. We need to cut all ties with any country that aids and abets such vermin. But we do not need to ever question why we are there.
I have a lot of friends in the Kandahar area. Anyone heard what Brigade this is yet?
So sad. We should have left Aghanistan the minute the punk prez won. He is a disaster on every front but especially to our military.
Okay, President Bush. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I really hate to see all this, what I call, needless carnage.
We knew it was going to be a long haul. So how long is it going to take? It’s been ten years.
Maybe forever. This EVIL Islam that we are fighting. They will not give up.
We look to be having the same reaction to this place as the Russians had in the 80s.
What a waste.
Past the time to bring them home from that stone age Moslem country.
Don’t bother trying to speak intelligently about it.
A lot of people here think we should have nuked the place, even though the vast majority of Afghans or Iraqis had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.
It isn’t like our efforts to destroy the industrial base of Japan prior to WWII, who created the capability for the military which was a deliberate instrument of the government to attack America.
I am sympathetic to the argument that we should have gotten in, done the job toppled the governement and got out, but what, leave a vacuum there for another person to just jump in and restart the process?
We did the right thing by going in, we did the right thing by trying to get them on their feet. I believe criticism of when we should leave or have already left is justified and has merit.
I watched “Saving Private Ryan” recently, and had a thought as I watched the scene where the guy enters the cemetery in Normandy where the Americans lay under all those white crosses in meticulously manicured fields of grass.
That those countries over there treat our cemeteries with such deference and respect, even today, is remarkable. They do so because we had values and stood by them for the most part while executing the war. We tried our best to avoid civilian casualties in areas captured by the Germans and Japan, but carrying the war to its fullest on their own soil.
If we had carpet bombed France or Belgium the way we did Germany and Japan, I doubt our servicemen would be so venerated today.
I like the fact that we were willing to do what was right, that we didn’t treat Afghanistan or Iraq the same way the Soviet Union treated Afghanistan while they were there.
Thing is, many of these people screaming longly and loudly about us being there at all are the same people who would have screamed longly and loudly had we done nothing.
I respect and value what our military have done and have tried to do over there. What they have done is right, and it reflects well on us that we have tried. We haven’t done it well in some cases, and we have done it poorly in some cases.
But I don’t, and never have subscribed to turning the place into glass. As an American, I can be proud to say who I am and where I am from.
As you said, if it weren’t for 9/11, we wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I understand and appreciate your sentiments, though it seems few others do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.