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Afghanistan Bomb Attacks Kill Twenty-One US Soldiers in 48 hours
Twenty-one American troops have been killed in Afghanistan since Friday in one of the bloodiest periods of the summer.
A series of bomb attacks have badly hit US troops in eastern and southern Afghanistan in the past 48 hours.
A US army medic runs to the scene of a road side bomb explosion in Kandahar province. (Photo: REUTERS) The death toll among in the Nato-led coalition has reached 484 this year and is predicted to far surpass 2009's total of 521.
Deaths have risen consistently each year since 2001. Afghan police and civilians have suffered far higher casualties.
The coalition blames the rise in troop deaths partly on the influx of reinforcements, which is allowing commanders to target previously untouched insurgent safe havens where rebels are mounting stiff resistance.
Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander in the country, warned last week fighting would "get harder before it gets easier".
In two of the most deadly recent incidents, three Americans died in eastern Afghanistan on one bomb attack on Tuesday. Five died in a single bomb attack in the south on Monday.
Military spokesmen would not say if the bombs hit vehicles or foot patrols.
Homemade bombs using old shells or homemade explosives and hidden in roads, tracks, walls, streams and buildings have become the Taliban's favoured weapon.
Their use has sparked an arms race with foreign troops evolving tactics, or relying on more heavily armed vehicles and mine detectors to try and avoid them.
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64 Comments so far
Show AllDear USA: Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of Afganistan...at least TRY to leave with some self respect like the Soviets did....back when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were working for YOU.
Are we sure its the taliban or was this done by the CIA to gain more support by the american people and more war funding from Congress? Effing mess...
Friendly fire can be a bitch, eh ?
This was not the CIA. They ramp up public support through false-flag "terrorist" attacks within the "homeland".
CNN has the info you are after here, including graphics:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/
from wikipedia(data 1 week old):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghanistan
American
Main article: United States Forces casualties in the war in Afghanistan
Of the American deaths, more than 930 have died in hostile action. Included in these numbers are 11 CIA operatives that were killed in Afghanistan: seven in a suicide bomb attack on a military base, two in an ambush, one in a prison uprising in November 2001, and one in an accident.[3] The independent website iCasualties has put the number of U.S. deaths at 1,171,[7]. This number is by four higher than the DoD's tally which is 1,167, when including the intelligence operatives.[8]
As of August 26, 2010, 7,643 American soldiers have been wounded in action in Afghanistan, with 4,115 not returning to duty in less than 72 hours.[8]
They still do portraits and moments of silence scribe, I see them on PBS at the end of their news hour. I think the thing I find interesting is that most of the fallen come from towns most have never heard of. I recall how the names of the dead were scrolled across the bottom of the screen back in the 1960s. I'm sure the President has received word of this carnage, think it'll cause him to tweak the speech he plans to make tonight?
If this President gave a damn about our troops or the Afghan people he would announce he was pulling our troops out and bringing them home.
The only thing Flopco/Obama gives a damn about right now is getting reelected.
Well he is damn well out of luck. And in two more years he will be out of office.
Hopefully whoever the republicans select to go with Bachman will get us out of there. (Iknow, I know!)
It's about time for the TV news to show that famous picture of the earth from space, observe ten minutes of silence, then go off the air for good.
As Kipling wrote,
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen
Alexander the great couldn't do it, The British couldn't do it, the Soviets failed.
Isn't the definition of madness trying the same thing and expecting a different result.
Read Stephen Tanner's book "Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban'
nuff said
I think it's the other Kipling poem—addressed specifically at Americans—that inspires those who glorify such adventures:
Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child
Take up the White Man’s burden
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit
And work another’s gain
Take up the White Man’s burden—
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly) to the light:
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
“Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s burden-
Have done with childish days-
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
--
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/
wow,
thanks to you both for posting those verses
George Orwell had some interesting things to say on the relative lack of hypocrisy and humanitarianism in Rudyard Kipling's writings on "niggers", "coolies", and other "wogs" under British rule:
----
All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are 'enlightened' all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our 'enlightenment', demands that the robbery shall continue. A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling's understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, 'making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep'. It is true that Kipling does not understand the economic aspect of the relationship between the highbrow and the blimp. He does not see that the map is painted red chiefly in order that the coolie may be exploited. Instead of the coolie he sees the Indian Civil Servant; but even on that plane his grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.
----
Some of those who are baffled by the enthusiasm for war shown by Democrats like Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and now Obama might want to read the entire essay of Orwell:
http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip
One myth is that an imperial power never defeated the Pastuns.
Genghis destroyed much of Afghanistan and
The British split Pastunstan in half with the Durand Line Treaty after their third invasion after the second invasion that left only one British invader alive.
Another couple of Myths is that Afghanistan is not a Nation in the classical sense of Nationhood, just because citizens have local control of there lives does not negate their Nationhood.
Another Myth is that Afghanistan never had a culture ( or does not have one to speak of).
The Buddhists of Bamiyan Valley, the Persian dominance, the Moghul rule of Kabul, the cities of Alexander would contradict this myth.
The graveyard of empires.... fascist amerika IS no different !
I don't understand why men choose to become soldiers. I have heard a million times about the 'sacrifice' made for the nation but it is not a sacrifice for the nation, these men and women are fighting and dying so that a very few can dominate and prosper and rule. Great harm is being done to America by this and other wars. The American Republic has become a national security state in which the manufacture of war is the central fact of life. For those non-nuclear states who fall into the broad category of potential 'threats' and therefore are attacked this becomes their existential threat to their very existence and all political, social, and economic evolution is reversed and a fight must be made to eject the invaders. And as we see, they will fight against any and all to the death. If they loose, they loose everything. America gives them no option whatsoever. This is not going to end well.
The Taliban may have done the actual killing, but who sent these soldiers to Afghanistan in the first place? I would say the people that sent these 21 soldiers to Afghanistan are more culpable for their murders than the Taliban, who from their perspective, are freedom fighters protecting their country from a foreign invader.
The blood of these kids and all the others including every single person of whatever nationality are on the hands of George Bush and Barack Obama.
The Taliban as bad as they are and make no mistake about it, they are bad are still in their own country so they have no respobsibility for these deaths. The murders of unarmed cibvilians yes, but not our troops or any other occupying troops.
Everybody who voted for Bush or Obama also has blood on their hands.
During the 2008 campaign Obama clearly stated his intention to "escalate Afghanistan and bomb Pakistan". Anti-war candidates were on ballots in all of the presidential elections of the past two decades. Even Republicans could have voted for anti-war candidate Ron Paul in the 2008 primary.
I have to admit you are correct. I didn't vote for Bush of course, but to my everlasting regret, I did vote for Obama. McCain could NOT have been worse. McfCain might even be more to the left.
As to third party, I just don't believe in symbolic votes...but I should have voted for Darth Vader before this guy.
Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander...warned last week fighting would "get harder before it gets easier"
I wish they would at least try saying that in different ways. It's verbatim what they started telling us in 2003 right after we discovered that the mission wasn't accomplished after all. It's been seven years and buckets of money so far, so I guess things should start getting easier any time now.
Paul Revere accurately notes that the Taliban "are freedom fighters protecting their country from a foreign invader." Bingo!
Afghans-resist and defy the American empire.
If we were attacked by any Country, I would be an insurgent !!
If America were legitimately attacked, only a coward would not be willing to put his life on the line to stop the aggressors. We would all be defending and killing the people attacking our country. Razormirror is correct! We would all be called terrorists or insurgents by the people that have illegally attacked our country. Sound familiar?
Preceding comments explicitly or implicitly imply "US and Nato" forces are losing the battle in Afghanistan. As the article makes clear, this is mistaken. After all,
The coalition blames [sic - "explains" should substitute for "blames"] the rise in troop deaths partly on the influx of reinforcements, which is allowing commanders to target previously untouched insurgent safe havens where rebels are mounting stiff resistance.
Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander in the country, warned last week fighting would 'get harder before it gets easier'."
Rather obviously, then, it is because "US and Nato" forces are winning that they are dying. Thus, only when all "US and Nato" forces are killed, will the "US and Nato" have won the war in Afghanistan.
I think you have a superior grasp of the "newspeak" of Amerikkkan foreign policy (i.e. black is white, captivity is freedom, up is down and so forth).
Of course!
There IS NO WIN in war ! Fascist amerika IS the big loser...its empire IS failing, now.... no chance of recovery !
21 more of our kids killed. And for what? Two mens ego's and atrrogance. How many more. How many more citizens of these countries will join them? Its sickening.
But anyone that thinks the Taliban are "Freedom Fighters" are living in La La land. These are bad folks that the Afghan people themselves despise and fear.
But it is NOT our business to dictate to another country what they should do or how they should live. And Its certainly not our business to invade and occupy a country that has not attacked us and that is what we have done. The next Right Wing A..H... that tells me that we have brought "democracy" to Iraq I think I'll just kick his butt.
I love America, our Republic and our Democracy...but I do NOT remember any other country sending a telegram asking us to export it or that they just couldn't wait for us to bring them a replacement for what they had.Or that they even believed it would work for them as formulated for us.
That is arrogance. And these deaths are waste.
I never said the Taliban were not thugs and killers. but from their perspective, they believe they are freedom fighters, after all, they may be in delusion for believing that they are freedom fighters, but mightymite, it is their country not ours!
"it is their country not ours!"
And thats the bottom line in any case. Its up to the Afghan people to decide to let them dictate or not.
Its SURE not up to us to dictate anything to them.
Like the American Indian, perhaps these men think this is their homeland they are defending. Their way of life, for thousands of years,veiwed by us as barbaric, and perhaps many of their own people that had moved on into the 21st century, like many American Indians did,joining the white man, thik they are lost in the past. Lots of mixed feelings....so we, just like our ancestors... kill them all !
If you believe one word of the BS stinking up the news, given to us by military intelligence, the obama crew, and complicit news media, I have some partially built condos in Phoenix you might be interested in. There is only one truth.
Soldiers, civilians, women, children, once killed are forever dead.
I just read Obama is stimulating the economy by relaxing regulations on weapons exports. At home, sales of guns and ammo are through the roof. Not sure whether to buy a bigger flag or plant IEDs around the house.
philphoko-
Paint your entire house as a red/white/blue Amerikkkan flag and erect a 12 ft cross in your front yard!
The Homeland SS loonies will take out your neighbors instead of you.
"I just read Obama is stimulating the economy by relaxing regulations on weapons exports"
Wall Street is turning its back on Flopco/Obama as far as the legal bribes known as campaign contributions are concerned. He now expects to recoup a large part of that through the arms manufacturers.
"regulations on weapons exports..." are un-American.
The American government has always maintained the right of its citizens to ship arms to belligerents. President Washington, through his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, and his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, took this position when France protested against the sale of arms to England in 1793, the answer being that "the exporting from the United States of warlike instruments and military stores is not to be interfered with." - Theodore Roosevelt's "Fear God..."p.160
IS NOT TO BE INTERFERED WITH!!!
gun runners from the get-go.
I'd go with the IED's.....
Poor man's air force...
I really hate it when people use the words "the fallen" to describe soldiers who have been killed in the illegal occupations this country is perpetrating. They are not the "fallen;" they are DEAD, KILLED, their boddies torn to pieces by explosions or bullets, so wall street boyars can line their pocketts with the bloody profits of endless war. We have a zillion euphemisms for talking about violent death (like, "wasted"), but that word "fallen" is particlarly annoying because it has a heroic ring about it, like some romantic painting of a cavalry charge. I really wish people would stop using it when they talk about the murder machine that is war.
An extremely good point and well put. You are oh so right that there is NOTHING heroic about dying.
George Mosse, who observed rise of the Nazis as a gay Jewish teenager in Berlin, did very useful research into how central the "cult of the Fallen" was to the Nazi worldview. Even their National Anthem was named after and written by a "fallen hero":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied
http://www.leithart.com/archives/002626.php
Uummmm...I don't believe "Horst-Wessel" was the national anthem, it was the Nazi Party anthem.
'The song of Horst-Wessel' was a co-national anthem of Germany, along with the first stanza of Deutschlandlied. It was acknowledged as such even outside Germany and played at formal events when high ranking German officials went overseas such as when the Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop went to Moscow in August 1939 to sign the Hitler-Stalin pact.
The creation of a new anthem was standard operating procedure for both Nazis and Fascists wherein they only rarely actually dismantled the constitutional state and it's symbols, instead they created a parallel 'dual State' which partially supplanted the legal state by virtue of a permanent State of Exception. Giorgio Agamben has many interesting thoughts on that type of legal structure and it's relevance to our own times:
http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=437
"...was standard operating procedure for both Nazis and Fascists wherein they only rarely actually dismantled the constitutional state and it's symbols, instead they created a parallel 'dual State' which partially supplanted the legal state by virtue of a permanent State of Exception." –(m156)
–Correct. A prescient and timely statement that is not without relevance to what is now happening in America.
The symbols will remain of the 'democratic past' as a kind of 'carapace' or vestigial remnant mainly to sustain an image 'trace,' while the 'permanent state of exception,' i.e., the fascist core, will be regnant.
However ambivalent the emergence of the 'dual state' in America will appear, one can be sure that the "Glenn Beck Song" will signify the final incarnation, and give the truth, to whatever 'appearances' to the contrary, that remain.
While warnings from the past should guide us, one should also remember that the Nazi-Fascist regimes existed in a world that is at far remove from ours. Which is why many of Umberto Eco's characteristics of that type of setup seem rather dated. But, while some of the symptoms are no longer as relevant, the general outline of the "brown plague" is still fairly coherent:
...the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein's notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some "family resemblance," as Wittgenstein put it...Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises.
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
Sheldon Wolin's thoughts on what could happen in a society like that of US are perhaps more pertinent:
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X
Things have been gettin' nastier before they get easier over there for a good eight years now, haven't they?
Probably the nastier they get, the easier they'll get.
Yeah, I s'ppose that's what them generals mean.
What a sin for our countrymen to die for a pipeline across this nation for the oilmen to access Caspian Sea oil and hold back our future just for a few trillion bucks. But what the hey the Dow is up today !
Petraeus and Obama should be out on patrol just like the soldiers they send to Afghanistan.