Jul 16 2008
Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Battles Begin
Yesterday I noted reports of US and NATO forces heading towards the Afghanistan-Pakistan border bringing tanks, artillery and attack helicopters with them. This movement of US, NATO and Afghan forces to the border with Pakistan brought the rats out of the Pakistan Tribal Areas to attack the infidels – and of course the rats are being slaughtered:
The Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan border police and US special forces have killed more than 150 fighters, mostly Pakistanis, in a military operation in south eastern Paktika province, a spokesman said Wednesday.
‘Last night, more than 350 fighters, most of them Pakistanis, entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, and attacked in the Barmal district of south-eastern Paktika province,’ Ghamai Khan Mohammed Yari told DPA in a telephone interview.
He said the ANA and border police, aided by a coalition airstrike, ‘counter-attacked the militants and after one hour’s fighting, more than 150 insurgents were killed, most of them Pakistani nationals.’
It seems the rats also tried to fire from inside Pakistan, which only provides targeting data to our weapon systems which can track back to the source of fire:
The International Security Assistance Force says NATO-led troops in Afghanistan used attack helicopters and artillery to fire into Pakistan after coming under rocket attacks from that side of the border.
Bring them on! More here at The Long War Journal
The president has stated from the beginning that we were fighting a world wide war on terror. He also stated that there would be many times where our victories could not be reported. He said that it would take decades to defeat this enemy. It will be a long hard slog.
Conman, what part of WORLD WIDE WAR on terror do you not understand? As in, we have been fighting ALL over the world, not just Afghanistan! Or Iraq! There are multiple theaters. And there will be in multiple locations as the enemy adjusts or tries to adapt…
But luckily for us, we have the most magnificent military in the world. As it was written on an Iraqi bridge where a terrorist had written, We will be back, an Iraqi soldier wrote: We will be waiting for you.
Love that!!!!! Go Iraq!
conman:
If I had my way Clinton would have killed Osama and the rest of his mad militia a decade ago and spared us all a lot of trouble, misery and pain. But we do not always get our way.
If we had not gone into Iraq, Osama would probably be hiding there today in Zarqawi’s compound. As far as that is concerned, the people we are fighting now are not in Afghanistan, they are in Pakistan and unless you think we should have invaded Pakistan a decade ago none of what you say really makes any sense.
You see conman, after you let Saddam get away with bloody murder there is no way Osama or anyone would have been worried about us. They would have known that we would back down eventually. They would have just kept hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, running their raids into Afghanistan saying to themselves, well if Saddam can try to kill a president and get away with it..what do we have to be afraid of?
This is sort of long, but it is an excerpt from Big Lizards :
So the same intelligence agencies that the Democrats — led by the Times — were busily hounding off the stage as serial exaggerators anent Iraq were also saying that al-Qaeda and the Taliban were massing in Pakistan, and the drive-by media were lapping it up. In more clinical terms, the Times now insists that we should have incorporated CIA intelligence about Pakistan, while at the same time rejecting CIA intelligence about Iraq.
So why, demands the elite media, didn’t we simply set up SF bases in Pakistan and finish the job?
When American military officials proposed in 2002 that Special Operations forces be allowed to establish bases in the tribal areas, Pakistan flatly refused. Instead, a small number of “black†Special Operations forces — Army Delta Force and Navy Seal units — were allowed to accompany Pakistani forces on raids in the tribal areas in 2002 and early 2003.
That arrangement only angered both sides. American forces used to operating on their own felt that the Pakistanis were limiting their movements. And while Pakistani officials publicly denied the presence of Americans, local tribesmen spotted the Americans and protested.
Under pressure from Pakistan, the Bush administration decided in 2003 to end the American military presence on the ground.
Liberals attack Bush for “going it alone” against Iraq, ignoring what our allies said (though most agreed to join us). And then they castigate Bush for refusing to actually invade one of our most important allies, clumsily thrashing around in the barely controlled tribal areas without even the support of Pakistan itself. I think I need to lie down with a wet towel on my forehead.
Shouldn’t Bush have just gone with the facts on the ground, as reported by the CIA stations in the region? Yet even the Times admits there were pitched battles about that very intelligence, fought between the CIA on the one hand, and the CIA on the other hand:
Along with the Afghan government, the C.I.A. officers in Afghanistan expressed alarm at what they saw as a growing threat from the tribal areas. But the C.I.A. officers in Pakistan played down the problem, to the extent that some colleagues in Kabul said their colleagues in Islamabad were “drinking the Kool-Aid,†as one former officer put it, by accepting Pakistani assurances that no one could control the tribal areas.
On several occasions, senior C.I.A. officials at agency headquarters had to intervene to dampen tensions between the dueling C.I.A. outposts.
Missing from this odd exhortation to destabilization is any recognition that Pakistan is special in any way. In fact, in one very big way: The New York Times completely ignores the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear nation. After 9/11, and possibly because of the successful attacks, which boosted the stock of radical Islamists everywhere (“strong horse”), the secularist president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, was on the ropes. Any major incursion by the United States into Pakistan, particularly in the face of Musharraf’s flat rejection of such American SF operations, would make it appear to Pakistanis that the United States was treating their country like a servant.
Such an infuriating image could well have toppled Musharraf; and as we’re seeing today, with Musharraf weakened (even though not yet out of the picture), Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has begun making overtures to the Taliban. Given that reality, the sudden collapse of Musharraf due to American intervention in his country could have brought to absolute power those like Sharif and Benazir Bhutto who are distinctly more friendly to the Talian and al-Qaeda. In fact, it was Bhutto herself who gave the Taliban its “start-up” money in the early 1990s, thus materially helping create that insane, theocratic, terrorist government.
It’s true, as the Times notes, that the Pentagon and some CIA executives wanted a big strike in Pakistan to capture Ayman Zawahiri, bin Laden’s number-one deputy and spiritual mentor; but the only intelligence indicating Zawahiri was to be in Pakistan for a terrorist conference was flakey… and President Bush decided, in the end, to listen to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and back off the mission (which had already crept up to a 100-man strong military assault). Maybe it would have worked; but if it didn’t — if it killed a lot of tribals and failed to net Ayman Zawahiri — it would have been a strategic catastrophe.
With such high stakes, we want people making the decision who are not simply military; we have civilian control of the armed forces precisely because the latter often don’t consider the political implications of military action: Had the tribes in the tribal lands risen up and rebelled against Islamabad, we would have lost all intel and all access altogether.
I still don’t think people fully appreciate that 45 American paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne and 25 Afghan soldier repelled a force of 500 Taliban.
Yes, we lost 9 troopers that day … but nobody is telling the bigger story. 45 Americans and 25 Afghans against 500 Taliban … and we won.
Here’s a link if anyone is interested. Ace had linked to it. I think the story is simply amazing. I am so proud of our service members I could just bust.
From the article:
And when I place my hand on my heart when I hear our national anthem, it is while remembering heroes like these. Come dawn, that banner was still there. Corny, maybe, but it boils down to the character of the individuals we have in our armed services and this generation of young men and women are doing this country proud.
If the 173rd Airborne Brigade deserves not only a unit citation for this, but they should have a ticker tape parade. They are based in Italy, though, and will not likely see any parades.
# Mark78on 16 Jul 2008 at 5:14 pm
Norm and others,
Why are you so opposed to any kind of U.S. victory, just curious?
Mark, ooh, wait, I can answer that:
Because they are Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Delusional Traitor Democratic Nutbags! (TM)
Of course, they’ll be voting for the new Marxist-Muslim Prophet and Whitelighter, Barack HUSSEIN Obama (PBUH)(SAW)(SWT)!
I want to point something else out about Iraq that supporters and opposers of the war and surge should read.
It’s taken as gospel by those opposed to the war that 2 plus years in Iraq were bungled or wasted and Bush was being stubborn in not changing strategy or pulling out but what if he was getting intel, that the public never saw, that al Qaeda in Iraq and the insurgency, was slowly being degraded but it would take time to complete the task? Bush alluded to this a number of times regarding seeing intel that would change the mind of Hillary or Obama if they won the presidency that would change their mind on Iraq.
Just something to consider…
Conman,
15 of 18 benchmarks is the Iraqi gov’t failing? Are you serious?
You don’t think al Qaeda lost thousands of fighters in Iraq? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3346386.ece This one mentions hundreds in just one province. If you’d like I can dig up the stories gleaned from jihadist websites of them admitting losses/casualties in the high thousands.
I thought this might be interesting, from David Horowitz’ blog at http://www.frontpagemag.com.
Posted at 6:07 PM on 7/16/2008 by David Horowitz
Critics of the War in Iraq like Andrew Sullivan still don’t understand what it was about.
Andrew Sullivan and Pete Wehner have been having a back and forth about whether the Iraq War was worth it. Wehner argues ably that we have won a major victory over the terrorists in Iraq, but in the course of making a strong case on those grounds lets Andrew get a way with misrepresenting what the war was about to begin with. Since Andrew’s misrepresentation is common to virtually every critic of the war, it is worth confronting.
According to Andrew ” the “fundamental casus belli” was “WMDS” and this causus belli turned out to be “false.” Put this way, as Andrew does, the statement is neither true nor false. [Snipped; AJStrata]
GWood,
Please do not post entire articles, it is not good form and probably not legal. Just a link and some snippets please.
Thanks, AJStrata
Terrye,
The best way to deter terrorist from attacking the US homeland is to do whatever it takes to kill or capture the people/groups that attack us. That is especially true for massive attacks like the one we indured on 9-11. In those instances, we need to do whatever it takes to hunt them down and destroy their organization/operation. This is common sense, so I assume you will agree with these statements.
The problem with your position is that you appear to be confused about who attacked us on 9-11. Osama and Al Qaeda are the ones that attacked us on 9-11, not Saddam. If you want to send a message to terrorist thinking about attacking us, the last thing you want to do is allow the terrorist group that previously attacked us to get away and set up a new sanctuary in a country that provides even more safety than the previous one. It still amazes me that the leadership of Al Qaeda, who masterminded the 9-11 attacks, got away and set up a new shop in Pakistan and conservatives like yourself don’t even bat an eye. You blame Clinton for not pulling the trigger when Osama was considered a two-bit thug at the time and yet you completely absolve Bush of any responsibility for allowing 9-11 to happen and letting Osama get away! Bush’s inability to kill or capture the leadership of Al Qaeda, a commitment he made shortly after 9-11, enabling them to reorganize in a new sanctuary is a complete and utter failure. There is no other way to look at it.
Attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 is not the way to deter future terrorist attacks. Rather, it sends the message that you can attack the US homeland and get away with it because America is too busy fighting old battles that date back to the first Gulf War. Why you keep bringing up the fact that Osama would have had a sanctuary in Iraq is beyond me – he already has that in Pakistan right now so it doesn’t it make any difference. It is also pure specualtion. Osama had zero contact with Saddam or Zarqawi prior to the invasion of Iraq. ZERO. The only reason you speculate that Osama would suddenly become best friends with a secularist dictator like Saddam is that you have to find some excuse for Bush’s blunder. If we stayed focused on capturing/killing Osama and the Al Qaeda leadership when we had them cornered in 2002-2003, we wouldn’t have to worry about them taking up sanctuary someplace else. Why can you not understand that very simple concept?
You also appear to be confused about what we discovered in Iraq after the invasion. You claim that “after you let Saddam get away with bloody murder there is no way Osama or anyone would have been worried about us.” What was Saddam getting away with? We confirmed after our invasion that Saddam had not reconstituted the WMD program. He was not getting away with anything. Meanwhile, Osama and the Al Qaeda leadership have gotten away with the 9-11 attack and you just sit there shrugging your shoulders – “who cares?” Amazing!
As for the accusation by Mark and Dale that anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq/Afghanistan policies is a traitor, you need to get up to speed on the times. Shouting down opposing views as anti-american wore out its effectiveness a couple of years ago. It worked well for Bush and the GOP in 2002-2006, but Americans aren’t falling for that one anymore. After 2 years of hearing those same shrills about Iraq, only to find out that they were nothing more than a cover for the dismal Iraqi occupation plan prior to the surge, people aren’t buying that line any more. That is why Bush and the GOP are held in such low esteem by the majority of Americans. Plus, aren’t we supposed to grow out of name-calling after grade school? All Americans want victory, we just disagree on what did and did not work in the past and how to achieve it going forward.
And no, there is no consensus about the benchmark progress. You cite the State Department report – no surprise that it was rosy. Here is the GAO report, a non-partisan report, that concludes the opposite. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08837.pdf. Given the recent developments on the political fronmt in Iraq (Iraq and US give up on Status of Forces negotiations, Iraqi parliament unable to agree on major components of the 2008 elections likely resulting in them being delayed indefinitely, etc.) I think the GAO report is proving to be the more accurate of the two. But wait, it is unamerican to criticize any Bush policy. My bad. Let me bury my head in the sand and praise Bush as our supreme leader!
Oops! Sorry ’bout that.
Conman,
The “Saddam didn’t do 9-11 so why did we attack” is a dead horse that liberals beat endlessly. And you are a liberal, despite your assertions otherwise.
Do you REALLY not understand the rational for taking out Saddam? We’ve granted that there is a case to be made for and against going into Iraq and it’s irresponsible to act as if its just a simple decision either way.
By the way, to continue denying progress puts you in a VERY slim minority that doesn’t involve using logic to get into so why should I try to use logic to get you out of it?
Why the defensiveness on patriotism too?
Conman,
Iraq was not about Hussein’s connections to 9-11. It was about Hussein’s now proven connections to al-Qaeda (specifically his coordination with Egyptian Islamic Jihad run by one Ayamn al-Zawahiri) and his potential to assist in future 9-11s. His records shows he had the material pre-positioned in Iraqi Embassies across the globe that could be used to attack Western Nations.
If al-Qaeda had the cells in place, Saddam had the material in place. Only liberals would say Saddam was not a threat. Thanks to George Bush they are not today dead or dying liberals.
AJStrata
Mark,
First of all, the key issue is not the rationale for taking out Saddam eventually. The key issue is the rationale for taking out Saddam before we finished the job in Afghanistan and destroyed Al Qaeda. I agree that there can be a case to be made for and against eventually taking Saddam out, but there is no legitimate basis for arguing that he presented an imminent threat and had to be taken out in March of 2003 before we finished the job in Afghanistan. At a minimum we should have finished off Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before we turned our attention to Iraq. Nobody on this post has answered (nor can they) why we had to act immediately in March of 2003 since we now know that Saddam’s WMD program was defunct and would take years to get back up and running. Meanwhile, there is an abundance of evidence demonstrating that resources being used to hunt down the Al Qaeda leadership were diverted to Iraq in 2003. The head of our own military, Admiral Mullen, just last week admitted that the Iraq war diverted resources from the Afghanistan theatre – what else do you need to hear to accept an obvious fact.
The irony of your position is that the dooms-day scenerio you paint if we didn’t take out Saddam is precisely what we currently have in Pakistan today. Al Qaeda has a new sanctuary to operate in an area with strong tribal support and in a country that has WMDs and elements of the government/military that even AJ and others on this blog have suggested may be complicate in Al Qaeda’s efforts. This is the same country that we just discovered a few years ago was selling nuclear technology on the black market (ever heard the name Khan?). How is that any different from the dooms-day scenerio you speculate would have happened in Iraq?
Where do you get off saying I’m denying progress? I’ve consistently acknowledged on this blog that the surge has produced significant progress in the security realm and some minor progress on the political/economic areas. My point has always been that the surge has not produced the necessary political/economic progress to ensure long-term stability. Why is it that I’m denying progress simply because I don’t agree that we have achieved all we needed to achive in Iraq as you seem to believe?
I’m also not defensive about your questioning my patriotism. I was just trying to point out how silly and immature it is to resort to name-calling just because you cannot substantively dispute a point. I have the same reaction to you claiming that I’m unamerican simply because I disagree with you about the progress in Iraq that you likely have when liberals accuse you of being a murder and baby killer because you support the war in Iraq – I shake my head and chaulk it up to some nut case that only sees the world in black and white.
AJ, I’ve previously disputed your claims about some master plan in place between Al Qaeda and Saddam (even Bush doesn’t buy into that fantasy), so I’ll save my breath this time. But the point I do want to make is that had we taken Al Qaeda out before we invaded Iraq, we wouldn’t have had to worry about that plan being operated on because Al Qaeda would be out of business. You repeatedly claim that it was because of Bush’s decision to pursue the surge in 2007 and take the fight to Al Qaeda that has led to their destruction. Just think where we would be today had Bush made that same decision in Afghanistan in 2003.