"Afghan air strikes kill nine civilians Wed Jul 16, 8:54 AM ET
Afghan authorities said Wednesday air strikes against extremist rebels in southwestern Afghanistan had killed four women and five children as well as several insurgents.
"The bombing started Tuesday morning," deputy provincial governor Mohammad Younus Rasouli told AFP. "One bomb struck a civilian home which killed four women, four young girls and a boy."
And as one would expect from the war propagandist papers, U.S. troops are JUST ITCHING to FIGHT in Afghanistan!
"Afghan fight calls to some US troops; As Iraq battle eases, they cite hope for action" by Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press | July 17, 2008BAGHDAD - Specialist Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shi'ite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he's missing the real war - in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban.
With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart's view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle.
"I've heard it a lot since I got here," said 2d Lieutenant Karl Kuechenmeister, a 2007 West Point graduate who arrived in Iraq about a week ago.
Soldiers who have experienced combat stress note that it is usually young soldiers on their first tour who most want to get on the battlefield. They say it is hard to communicate the horrors of war to those who haven't actually experienced it.
"These kids are just being young," said Sergeant Christopher Janis, who is only 23 but is on his third tour in Iraq. "They say they want to get into battle until they do, and then they won't want it anymore."
That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it's the lowest in four years, thanks to the US troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against Al Qaeda in Iraq, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shi'ite militias.
American military deaths in Iraq are also down sharply this month, in a trend that could take center stage during Senator Barack Obama's planned visit to Baghdad and the debate over whether America's main battle is shifting back to Afghanistan.
The relative calm is apparent in Baghdad's Ghazaliyah neighborhood, patrolled by troops stationed at Maverick from the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division.
Instead of facing gunfire and roadside bombs, the soldiers' armored Humvees are chased by waving children. Some of Maverick's troops saw combat a few months ago when they helped the Iraqi Army take over the Ghazaliyah office of anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a battle complete with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades.
But their days in Ghazaliyah have mostly been filled with routine patrols. To while away the time, Gebhart, the young soldier from Omaha, Neb., talks of his brother, who is fighting the Taliban in the mountains outside Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
"He spends 20 days at a time camped out in the mountains, and the Taliban come engage them in serious firefights," said Gebhart. "At least it sounds exciting."
Romantic even!
That excitement comes with a price, the officers here point out. Militants in Afghanistan killed nine American soldiers Sunday, the worst attack on US forces in the country in three years.
"These kids who joined the Army since the Iraq war started in 2003 are more fearless than when I joined during the Cold War," said 1st Sergeant John Greis, the senior enlisted soldier at Maverick. "They knew they were going to war."
Saying they want to go where the action is - in Afghanistan - is one way for young soldiers to prove toughness, colleagues say. Some may get their wish to go to Afghanistan. There is broad consensus in Washington that some US forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in Afghanistan.
All of a sudden, I really don't care about America's troops -- especially since they want to go kill people who never did us any harm.
Not all soldiers in Iraq are pining for service in Afghanistan. Greis, a 21-year veteran, isn't eager to seek out battle. "There is nothing cool about seeing your buddy on the ground during his last dying seconds of life," he said.
--MORE--"Naw, WAR is GLORIOUS, haven't you heard?
I did from my war-promoting Zionist War Daily here!
Which is fine.
You guys want to go fight on a losing front, I won't issue commentaries for the occupations to stop.
Have at it, guys, but don't expect me to cry for any dead Americans anymore.
KABUL, Afghanistan - American and Afghan troops have abandoned an outpost in eastern Afghanistan where US forces earlier this week suffered their largest loss of life in three years, a NATO spokesman said yesterday.
Nine American soldiers were killed and 15 others were wounded Sunday when insurgents breached the perimeter defenses of the small, newly constructed forward base near the village of Wanat, close to the border of Pakistan.
Fortifications for the forward base, which had been established days earlier, were not yet complete when the assault took place, military officials said. Insurgents customarily carry out close surveillance of Western troop movements and might have known it was vulnerable.
In the wake of the outpost's evacuation, Afghan authorities said the area was overrun by Taliban fighters. The outpost attack illustrates the growing strength of the insurgency, more than six years after the Taliban was driven from power.
Military officials say an upsurge in violence over the past two months is largely the result of aggressive pursuit of militants by Western troops during the summertime "fighting season," when the snows have melted in the mountains.
But some Afghan authorities and outside analysts say the insurgents appear to be gaining the upper hand in remote areas, particularly those abutting the rugged border with Pakistan.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization spokesman Mark Laity declined to link the outpost's dismantling to the attack, saying such forward bases are set up and removed at will.
NATO also denied reports by some Afghan officials that about 30 civilians were killed in US air strikes after the outpost attack.Oh, so the AmeriKan War Daily DID mention the slaughtered women and kids -- somewhat and in the last paragraph, of course!
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I'm tired of the hiding of the US' mass-murder, folks.
Been hollering about it for years, and this stink coverage never changes.
Let's check out the Times just for "balance."
"
KABUL, Afghanistan — The withdrawal handed a propaganda victory to the Taliban, and insurgents were quick to move into the village of Wanat beside the abandoned outpost, Afghan officials said.
Yeah, it was a "propaganda" victory for the "Taliban" -- if it even was them (read on).
And the NYT has some gall (pun intended) to hurl the propaganda charge at anyone!
Local people have been angered by civilian casualties caused by American airstrikes aimed at militants, and some now may be cooperating with the militants, Afghan officials said.
Umm, yeah, maybe they are just getting revenge as is their custom and not "Taliban" at all, huh?
And just who are "Talibans?"
"Something of a catchall term for loosely affiliated insurgents without a singular command structure. Often, the Afghan government favors the phrase 'enemies of the state' (New York Times July 24, 2007)."
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the attack, and other recent cross-border strikes, underscored the need for more allied troops in Afghanistan and more aggressive action by Pakistani security forces on the other side of the border.
“There is no question that the absence of pressure on the Pakistani side of the border is creating an opportunity for more people to cross the border and to launch attacks,” Mr. Gates told reporters. “There is a real need to do something on the Pakistani side of the border to bring pressure to bear on the Taliban and some of these other violent groups.”
Admiral Mullen said the attacks probably foreshadowed even greater cross-border violence. “We see this threat accelerating,” said Admiral Mullen, who met with senior Pakistani officials in Islamabad on Saturday. “We see it almost becoming a syndicate of different groups who heretofore had not worked closely together.”
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You recognize that shit shovel for what it is, right, readers?
Blogs have been screaming about the demonization of Pakistan, and here it is -- led by the chief propaganda spewers, the NYT!!!
CUI BONO?
