Taliban haven is GIs' `Camp Hell'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0607110158jul11,1,736947.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

MUSA QALA BASE, Afghanistan -- Nobody waves at the soldiers here. Children do not crowd around the Humvees, asking for pens and candy, as they do in the rest of Afghanistan. Even the girls throw rocks at passing U.S. military helicopters.

U.S. troops set up this base in southwestern Helmand province in mid-June to fight insurgents, part of the largest military operation since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. This area, virtually abandoned by the government for years, is probably the most hostile place for foreign troops in all of Afghanistan. Here, all government enemies have a comfortable home--the opium poppy farmers, the drug runners, the Taliban. Everyone else is scared.

The only Afghan visitors to the new base have either tried to attack it or complained about it. Some soldiers refer to the nearest large village, Musa Qala, as Taliban Town. Many are resentful of locals who pretend the Taliban does not exist, who refuse to help. snip

To see how violent the war in Afghanistan has turned, look no further than the soldiers at this base. They have been attacked every few days. On the morning of June 28, a medic known for always carrying a picture of his wife and newborn son was killed when an old land mine exploded. That night, insurgents attacked a convoy carrying supplies to the base. The next night, insurgents ambushed U.S. soldiers operating out of a satellite base about 60 miles to the north. Last week, a gunner at the satellite base was shot dead when his convoy was ambushed.

[beam me up scottie]

1. We have no idea...

On June 24, 1st Lt. Joe Lang, 23, of Maui, Hawaii, wrote a letter to his family, talking about the soldiers who have died, the good men they were, like the fair and even-handed battalion commander who never had seen his new baby daughter. Or the friend shot dead while rescuing an injured man. Or that same injured man and the medic, who both died when the cable on the rescue helicopter snapped. Lang said his heart was broken. He felt strange about his lack of remorse when a key Taliban rebel was killed.

"I still feel alone," Lang told his family. "Realize that no one could understand what I've been through unless they have lived it."

********

Other soldiers try to put themselves in the minds of the Afghans, or of the children at least, and wonder what it's like to grow up in a desert on the edge of Earth, in a place where the Taliban burns down schools, where brand-new USAID-funded clinics are not used, where the job options are limited to herding goats and growing poppies.

In his letter to his family, Lang wrote that Afghanistan's mountains looked almost beautiful enough for a vacation. He talked about how wasteful war was. And Lang ended his letter to his family with a piece of hope, a rarity here. He talked about running into an Afghan girl and giving her a Pop-tart, even though soldiers are not supposed to give out food. Lang and his fellow soldiers showed her how to unwrap it.

"She smiles," Lang wrote. "Beautiful. Hides the food and walks away."

[MadMaddie]

2. Sigh.....We have to get them out before they are all destroyed...

[knitter4democracy]

3. How many soldiers have we lost there?

Are they even counted in our losses? It sounds like more than I remember seeing. How awful. I should e-mail the soldier I know there and see how he's doing.

[beam me up scottie]

4. Please do.

They must think we've forgotten about them.

Tell him we care.

And that we want him home.

[knitter4democracy]

9. I sent him a helmet liner with some goodies.

Maybe it's time for socks and more goodies. Of course, that would mean that I need to get off my butt and finish the socks and helmet liner for other soldiers . . .

[beam me up scottie]

11. Thank you.

I thought about them all day at work.
The soldiers, the children, all of them.

It's probably a good thing that I already killed my tv long ago, because if I had to watch that son of a bitch in the White House telling us yet again that we're "winning" the war on terror, I'd heave it through the window.

[knitter4democracy]

14. I can't watch him at all.

I turn him off--can't even hear his voice. I'm that angry about it, which suprises me, since I've never been this mad about anything political before.

[beam me up scottie]

17. I can't believe how many times

I've heard people say that.
How can half the country be so blind to what enrages so many of us?

[beam me up scottie]

5. To answer your first question

From UnknownNews.com:

US military deaths in Afghanistan are announced by US Department of Defense and CENTCOM. Coalition deaths in Afghanistan are not officially tallied by any government agency we're aware of, but are being tracked by the good folks at Wikipedia: As of July 5, 2006, there have been 397 coalition deaths in Afghanistan and other theaters of war during Operation Enduring Freedom — 308 American, 18 German, 17 Spanish, 16 Canadian, 13 British, 7 French, 6 Italians, 4 Romanians, 3 Danish, 2 Swedish, 1 Australian, 1 Norwegian, and 1 Portuguese. In addition to these deaths, 62 Spanish peacekeepers returning from Afghanistan were killed in 2003 when their plane crashed in Turkey.

http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html

[knitter4democracy]

8. Wow. That's a lot more than I had heard.

I wonder if the number is actually higher than that. The soldiers are making it sound like they're losing more than that.

[shadowknows69]

12. I had one soldier tell me we had 32 killed in one week

It has to be higher.

[knitter4democracy]

13. I read that post. He can't be making that up.

It just sounds fishy.

[leftchick]

18. icasualites.org has 408 Dead....

Coalition Military Fatalities By Year:

Period US Other Total
+ 2006 58 26 84
+ 2005 99 30 129
+ 2004 52 6 58
+ 2003 48 9 57
+ 2002 48 20 68
+ 2001 12 0 12
Total 317 91 408

http://www.icasualties.org/oef/

[beam me up scottie]

19. It says that figure was from July 5th. I'm sure Wikipedia has updated it

since then.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Even the girls throw rocks at passing U.S. military helicopters.

Why do they hate us?

Don

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. to answer your question NNN0LHI...

imagine people invading the city where you live. They come in declare Marshal Law and then start kicking in doors in your neighborhood. Your electricity and other basic utilities, no longer works much of the time, because of the invasion. These invaders are so strung out from too many tours of duty (and prescribed drugs) that they kill many of your friends and even a close relative or two in their fearful confussed state of mind. You know that NON of those killed were guilty of any insurgency. They are called "collateral damage." Would you hate the invaders?

[beam me up scottie]

10. Um, I'm fairly certain that was a hypothetical question.

:hi:

[karlrschneider]

15. Think you mean rhetorical

;-)

[beam me up scottie]

16. crap!

posting on too many threads at the same time again...:banghead: