Whatever the case may be, there is no clear mission in Afghanistan, no clear idea of victory, and no understanding of the jihad doctrine that motivates not only the Taliban but others in Afghanistan -- and all that is a recipe for disaster. "U.S. troops abandon remote Afghan base where 8 were killed," by Laura King for the Los Angeles Times, October 10:
Kabul, Afghanistan - American troops have abandoned an isolated firebase where eight U.S. soldiers were killed in a fierce assault by insurgents last weekend, military officials said Friday.The departure from the base in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan province, in northeastern Afghanistan, was part of a previously planned "repositioning" of troops, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
The Taliban, in its own statement, said it had driven the Americans out.
The daylong battle Oct. 3 in Kamdesh, in which at least four Afghan troops and 100 attackers also were reported killed, was reminiscent of a much-scrutinized engagement in the area in July 2008. In that battle, nine U.S. soldiers were killed and their remote firebase was nearly overrun.
In last week's attack, insurgents managed to penetrate the base's perimeters, military officials have acknowledged, a rare occurrence in clashes between Taliban fighters and the much better armed Western forces.
The pullout from the battered Kamdesh base was described as part of a larger strategy laid out by U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of Western forces in Afghanistan. His counterinsurgency plan calls for troops to concentrate their attention on populated areas rather than continue to staff isolated outposts that are vulnerable to attack and have little effect on the insurgents' ability to move in a given area....
Firebase Cobra was in fact in the process of being dismantled when the attack occurred. The reason it was being dismantled was due to its extremely vulnerable position where you had mountains surrounding it which allowed the Taliban to pour weapons fire down on the base.
That said, the fact the Taliban can get 300 or so men close enough to a base to launch a attack is very bad. It means our local intel and observational capabilities are next to worthless. And from that it's easy to infer that it is just a matter of time before the Taliban do overrun one of our bases and wipe out its garrison.
The long history of "failed/defeated invaders" in Afghanistan is way overblown - more likely what happens is that these outsiders came to realize what a sh*thole that place is and just ask themselves: "What were we thinking???" and leave not in defeat, but in disgust.
walt - good point on the local intel. That was my thought exactly when this happened - don't we at least have surveillance drones over these areas????
Khe San?
Who's on first?
U.S. abandons Afghanistan base. Taliban: We drove you out. U.S.: no, we left.
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Well, this is about the only qualm I'd have about us pulling out of Afghanistan--that the Taliban will declare it a glorious victory for Islam against the "Crusaders"
Well, that and the reimposition of full-blown Shari'ah, the revenge killings of of Afghan "apostates" (anyone who worked with the Americans or the Karzai government), and the continued immolation of Afghan women in the burkha.
Odd that you hear almost no mention of this when pundits natter on about "partnering with the Taliban". Have they forgotten what a horror the Taliban was?
Of course, it is not the job of the enlightened West to save Afghan Muslims from themselves. Still...
Kinda similar - except we wisely expended enough ordinance to keep the enemy from over running the place. The Mosque and the village (the staging grounds for the attack) should have been leveled.
Obama's "New Strategy" in Afghanistan will lead to more (predictable) slaughter of our troops and our eventual defeat there.
We will not do what is necessary to accomplish the task, so it is best to leave at some point. My only concern arises from Pakistan having a nuclear aresenal.
We should leave Afghanistan now. If the Taliban start building training camps again we just have the BUFF's pay them a visit and say drop about 50 tons of ordinance.
Oh yeah we should spray every poppy crop with defoliant as a going away present instead of kissing opium farmer ass.
The place isn't worth the life of a single American soldier.
Why was the base in the valley? My knowledge of battles only comes from the movies but every Western I saw when I was young had the Apaches attacking from the high ground. I'm serious about the question, I don't understand why they wouldn't put a base on high ground. Any ideas?
You are correct, gymgal, if you allow the enemy to hold the high ground, you are militarily at a disadvantage.
You are also at a disadvantage if you are few in number and posted at a forward “fire base”. In modern counter-guerilla warfare, these disadvantages are usually neutralized by heavy reliance on airpower and artillery fire. Using these tools, the enemy can usually be annihilated BEFORE he overruns your position.
The Obama Administration recently announced a “New Strategy” in Afghanistan that severely restricts our air strikes and artillery fire, only to targets that are positively identified as free of “civilians”. This is due to the allegedly high “civilian” casualties from our past air strikes and a feeling that this was loosing the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan population. This new strategy directly contributed to a large loss of American lives in a recent firefight and I suspect it is the cause of our loss in this one.
I have recently read that U.S. “weapon failure” was ato blame in this firefight. One account has it that the rifles were fired until the barrels were “white hot” and that the weapons subsequently jammed. Quite like explaining that the roadway was not completed due to the failure of shovels – after we ordered the bulldozers to stand down.
You are correct, gymgal, if you allow the enemy to hold the high ground, you are militarily at a disadvantage.
You are also at a disadvantage if you are few in number and posted at a forward “fire base”. In modern counter-guerilla warfare, these disadvantages are usually neutralized by heavy reliance on airpower and artillery fire. Using these tools, the enemy can usually be annihilated BEFORE he overruns your position.
The Obama Administration recently announced a “New Strategy” in Afghanistan that severely restricts our air strikes and artillery fire, only to targets that are positively identified as free of “civilians”. This is due to the allegedly high “civilian” casualties from our past air strikes and a feeling that this was loosing the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan population. This new strategy directly contributed to a large loss of American lives in a recent firefight and I suspect it is the cause of our loss in this one.
I have recently read that U.S. “weapon failure” was ato blame in this firefight. One account has it that the rifles were fired until the barrels were “white hot” and that the weapons subsequently jammed. Quite like explaining that the roadway was not completed due to the failure of shovels – after we ordered the bulldozers to stand down.