U.S. Airstrikes Rise In Afghanistan as Fighting Intensifies

[Rose Siding]

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 18, 2006; Page A01

As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

The airstrikes appear to have increased in recent days as the United States and its allies have launched counteroffensives against the Taliban in the south and southeast, strafing and bombing a stronghold in Uruzgan province and pounding an area near Khost with 500-pound bombs.
...
Commanders say the combat is more intense than in the past three springs, both on the ground and from the air. The offensive has coincided with an effort to wipe out opium poppy crops in the south, resulting in an alliance between wealthy drug traders and anti-government Taliban forces. Anti-government fighters are moving in where the government has left a vacuum, especially where there is money to be made from drug trafficking and extortion.

"The Taliban are opportunists," said John Stuart Blackton, a retired U.S. diplomat who consults on Afghan issues with the National Intelligence Council, which produces government intelligence forecasts. "They have no deep ideology and no deep theory that informs what they are doing. . . . In other words, they are better understood as being like a crime family in New Jersey."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700784.html

[Roland99]

1. How long were the Russians in Afghanistan? How long have we been there?

[Igel]

2. 10 years, in total, but

an agreement on a pull-out was reached after 8 years.

15k troops killed, and a fair amount of hardware lost. 1 million or so Afghans (est., of course) dead.

For all the similarities, quite a few differences.

On edit: ah, how long have we been there? Fall '01 to the present, so a bit over 4 1/2 years.

[phillysuse]

3. Not like a crime family in NJ but like the Bush crime family

Please don't insult us in New Jersey!

It's the Bush crime family that pretends to have an ideology - no gay marriage, no flag burning, etc but is really about making money for themselves and their global allies like the bin Laden's, the House of Saud etc.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. "The Taliban are opportunists,"

"and there is only room for one set of opportunists, and that's us" said John Stuart Blackton, in a regrettable moment of unusual candor. Oh wait, he didn't say that. Well he should have.

So if the taliban are like the sopranos then the bushista are like the genovese? What is this an SAT test? Ah heck they dropped that section anyhow.

[daleo]

5. Sad to say, but the Taleban probably have a much deeper ideology

than the BFEE.

[saigon68]

6. Its the Old "Bomb them back to the Stone Age" theory

[teryang]

7. A veteran on Alex Jones described a "burnex"

A burnex is a mission where the unit deploys to take down the al qaeda or the taliban, and then when they get there there aren't any. But they brought a huge amount of ammo and "burn it off" while file videos are made of the "action." Later the video is shown on CNN with some bullshit story.

Reminded me of a Navy pilot who told me of his "dumpex" missions in Vietnam and Cambodia. He'd fly to coordinates and dump his 10,000 lb load of 500 lb bombs 2x a day, day after day, on tractless jungles.