Taliban moves onto abandoned U.S. base

[cory777]

Source: AP

KABUL — Taliban fighters swarmed over a mountaintop base abandoned last week by the U.S. military following some of the toughest fighting of the Afghan war, according to footage aired Monday by a major satellite television station.

The video by Al-Jazeera is a morale booster for Taliban fighters, though the U.S. insists the decision to withdraw from the base in the Korengal Valley was sound and the area has no strategic value.

The footage showed armed men walking through the former U.S. base, which was strewn with litter and empty bottles, and sitting atop sandbagged gun positions overlooking the steep hillsides and craggy landscape. Fighters said they recovered fuel and ammunition. But a U.S. spokesman said ammunition had been evacuated and the fuel handed over to local residents.

“We don’t want Americans, we don’t want Germans or any other foreigner. We don’t want foreigners, we want peace. We want Taliban and Islam — we don’t want anything else,” one local resident said on the tape.

Read more: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/04/ap_afghanistan_041910w/

[Old Vet]

1. Is it just me or wait a little longer for it to get a little more.....

Populated and bomb it off the face of the earth. Our Soldiers died trying to defend that god forsaken outpost.

[PSPS]

2. No thanks. Let's just stop the illegal occupation and war crimes, mkay?

[pundaint]

3. I fear those soldiers died for the careers of their inept leaders, and it's time for it to stop.

[Socal31]

4. Yes I was thinking a few cruise missles would do the trick.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. But then again, it could be just a bunch of locals

who are scavenging the area for anything usable

[customerserviceguy]

19. Who knows what 'surprises' they left behind

for the Taliban to find? Maybe the whole damned place will blow up from within when a big enough cheese gets there to gloat.

[happyslug]

21. To destroy an abandoned base?

The base has no use for the Taliban, they filmed walk through the base but that is all. I doubt they stayed the night. This base has no importance to the Taliban, they live among the people so they do NOT need a base. It is NATO forces that need a base, to safeguard them from attacks from the Taliban. Thus the base was left intact, even the troops who abandoned the base saw that it was unimportant to the Taliban, but may be important to them later on so it was left intact FOR OUR TROOPS FUTURE USE not that ob the Taliban.

This is like the situation at the end of Red Cloud's war (1866-1868), the United States agreed to abandon its forts in Powder River valley. As the US Forces left those forts the Dakotas and Cheyenne entered the forts and burned them to the ground. The forts had no importance for the Native Americans, they did NOT need them to hold the area. On the other hand the Forts were needed by US forces to hold the area, thus when abandoned left standing in case US forces would ever need them in the Future. The same with this base, the Taliban has no use for it, thus looked to see what they could pick up and use out of the trash that was left. The US Forces left the base basically intact so it would be easy to rebuild if the US ever wanted to go back.

More on Red Cloud's war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cloud%27s_War
The above cite mentioned Fetterman's Massacre, one of the last battles in History where one side did NOT use firearms. Chief Red Cloud told his Native Americans NOT to use any firearms in the battle, while the US forces did. The battle was heard from the nearby fort and they knew it was over as the firing of the firearms slowly died out.


As to finding "Ammunition", the main source of supplies for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War was US trash bins. The US forces would throw away things that the Viet Cong could use. For example the US forces would used batteries in their flash lights and once the batteries would start to deem (This is pre-LED days) would throw out the old batteries and put in new batteries (and when starting patrols would take out old, but still usable batteries for fresh batteries, discarding the old batteries). The Viet Cong would take these old batteries and use them, often as the power source for home made bombs (The batteries still had enough charge to set off the explosive used in the bomb). The Viet Cong would re-use brass cartridges (The Viet Cong AND the Afghans were both know to do this with Russian made Berdan primers, which tend NOT to be re-loadable, given that the US uses Boxer primers in their cartridges it made such reuse easier for Boxer primers are designed for use in re-loadable brass cartridges).

I should note the LAW rocket has made a come back during the recent fighting. The LAW rocket was designed in the 1960s as a replacement for the Korea Era 3.5 inch Bazooka. The LAW was a one time non-re-loadable rocket issued as a Round of Ammunition. IT technically was replaced by a larger more effective anti-tank weapon in the 1990s, but it the recent fighting that larger, more expensive weapon was found to be to large for most soldiers to carry even that the insurgents were NOT using armor. The LAW could do all that the larger rocket could do, but in a more compact size (Yes, the LAW would have trouble with a T-72 Tanks, but no one has been using T-72 against US forces since US forces took Baghdad). Now during Vietnam the Viet Cong would take discarded LAW rocket Tubes and convert them into improvised mortars. Inaccurate but effective in close combat situations. I suspect the Taliban is doing the same (They have access to the same books as the rest of the world does with the internet).

Just a comment on the "Ammunition" found by the Taliban. The US said it left none, and the US forces did NOT leave anything it called Ammunition. On the other hand the US left a lot of trash, trash the Taliban can use either as ammunition or as weapons (or other combat uses, such as tents). The US forces were being drilled in the 1980s on make sure waste was NOT something the other side could use (I was exposed to these ideas in the 1980s when I was in), but I fear that this idea had been forgotten by the troops during the actual fighting AND their officers are NOT make sure waste is waste not only to US forces but also to the Taliban.

My points is the US probably left a lot of what the Troops considered trash.

[harmonicon]

6. yeah, that makes sense

Nothing like killing innocent people for having the gall to not want their home to be occupied by a foreign army.

[No Elephants]

8. If they're really Afghani Taliban, they are far from innocent people.

[harmonicon]

10. Yeah, and why is that?

You're judge and jury now? Conviction is based on nationality and political party? if a foreign power invaded my country and killed my family I'd sure as fuck get myself some weapons and try to make them leave, and I don't think there would be anything wrong with that.

[Robb]

16. So the Taliban is now a "political party?"

You know, just because the right wing has labeled us as terrorist coddling fools doesn't mean we have to actually be terrorist coddling fools.

[harmonicon]

24. I'm sorry that you've bought into the medias purposeful spin on this...

but the Taliban are not any more terrorists than the other parties involved in their country's civil war. Up until 2001 the US was working with them and even supporting them as a legitimate government (many players have been supported by the US since the 80's when the soviets and then legitimate Afghan government were fighting them).

This doesn't mean that I like them or excuse them, but their concern is local, and our country should have nothing to do with their - or any other country's - civil war militarily.

[Robb]

25. Thanks for educating me.

:rofl:

[harmonicon]

27. so it's not just a joke?

You really are a dingbat?

[daleo]

29. They are the moral equivalent of the founding fathers

In decades that start with an "8". Maybe a "9". Otherwise, they are terrorists. That's the rule. That's always been the rule.

[harmonicon]

30. How so?

Seriously - how the fuck are they terrorists? Is "terrorist" just the word for all non-white people who we don't like now? Personally I thought it was ridiculous how the US played nice with the Taliban when they were in power (I seem to have been one of the only people in the US paying attention to the situation there then), but to pretend they are something they are not gets us nowhere. Furthermore, by engaging in such linguistic subterfuge, we remove the power of language as a means of dialectic communication and turn it into worthless metaphorical sloganeering.

[daleo]

32. Very good points.

These labels shift with the perceived necessity of different administrations (sometimes even the same administration at different times), so clearly they don't really have a fixed meaning.

[global1]

17. Hmmmm - That Sounds Like A Militia.........nt

[Prometheus Bound]

13. You have no way of knowing that.

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Same Idea came to me...

That's some good bait!

[Prometheus Bound]

9. Sounds to me like they got tired of the killing. For what, after all.

[geckosfeet]

11. Bad bad move to try and defend that piece of dirt. Someone fucked up bad.

The sooner the troops come home the better. Let the locals and the Taliban figure it out.

[NecklyTyler]

12. It was the Bush Administration "Meat Grinder" tactics for the war in Afghanistan

The strategists Bush employed prosecuted the war by positioning troops in a vulnerable area to act as bullet magnets. When the Taliban would attack, we would respond with artillery and air strikes. Nice way to fight a war for the people sitting at a desk in the Pentagon; not so nice for the infantry who served as the bait in the trolling operations

[geckosfeet]

28. Using GI's as bait. Only an armchair commander could find that appealing.

[Bigmack]

22. "...bomb it off the face of the earth...."

There's a tactic that hasn't worked for us all over the world. But let's do it some more! :sarcasm:

[Blandocyte]

14. Well, at least they're using something we built

they don't seem to like the schools that we built for coed use.

[Prometheus Bound]

15. Video and pics here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1267443/Afghanistan-Taliban-fighters-swarm-US-military-base-days-troops-withdraw.html

[peace13]

18. Thanks for posting this. n/t

[pjt7]

20. When do we go home

& get out of the Heroin trade?

[Bragi]

23. This war is over, more deaths are inexcusable

Obama has already indicated the drawdown of troops will begin in 2011, which means that, in fact, the U.S will be leaving Afghanistan long before any stable government is established there, which means that the drug lords and thugs and and the Taliban (minus Al Qaeda this time) will resume running the place, just as they have for the past, oh, about 200 years.

This withdrawal is commendable, as there is no strategic reason to continue to occupy Afghanistan at this point. What is not acceptable is that the killing of more U.S troops by Afganis, and the killing of more Afghanis by U.S troops, will continue until 2011.

I see this as a tragic waste of human life. Instead of having the big and pointless battle which is now planned by the generals for this coming summer, I wish the US military would just withdraw to their troops to their compounds, and wait for airlift back home.

This war is over. More deaths there are pointless.

[friendly_iconoclast]

26. Oh, great. We refought the Battle of Hamburger Hill in Afghanistan

With the same results:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hamburger_Hill

Battle of Hamburger Hill

The Battle of Hamburger Hill was a battle of the Vietnam War which was fought between the United States and South Vietnam against North Vietnamese forces from May 10–20, 1969. Although the heavily fortified Hill 937 was of little strategic value, U.S. command ordered its capture by direct assault.

The battle was primarily an infantry affair, with the U.S. Airborne troops moving up the highly sloped hill against well entrenched troops. Attacks were repeatedly repelled by weather, friendly fire, accidents, and especially the highly effective North Vietnamese Army (NVA) defenses. Nevertheless the Airborne troops took the hill through direct assault, causing extensive casualties to the NVA forces, and taking such in their own units. The debacle caused an outrage both in the American military and public....

....Major General John M. Wright quietly abandoned the hill on June 5....

[dflprincess]

31. I thought we were there to fight Al Qaeda

Nothing was ever said about going into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban (of course, nothing was actually said about any pipe lines either).

It wasn't that long ago the administration was talking about offering bribes (our tax dollars at
work) to any Taliban leaders who merely said they renounced terra-ists and terra-ism. - Though it was not necessary for them to renounce using terroist tactics against the women of Afghanistan.

[Alamuti Lotus]

33. this former military base of the occupation forces used to be a lumber yard

...owned by a local businessman named Hajji Matin. The Afghan puppet government outlawed the logging industry there (economically choking the Korengalis) and then the US military invaded and seized the lumber mill itself to use as their base to occupy the valley (which, in fact, they were never able to do. After members of his family were murdered by NATO bombings, this businessman became the local (and now, triumphantly successful) Resistance commander. But yeah, vile nasty terrorists all, thank gawd freedom and democracy are on the march, the corner has been turned and the light is within sight: victory is near(*).


(*)--near indeed, just not for the occupyers..