Two U.S. soldiers killed, Afghan war heats up

[strollingbones]

KABUL, July 12 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Sunday, the latest deaths in an escalation of violence that has put pressure on coalition leaders over their war strategy.

Thousands of U.S. Marines and hundreds of British soldiers have been fighting major new offensives in the past 10 days in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and Afghanistan's biggest producer of the opium that funds the insurgency.

The assault by U.S. Marines, Operation Strike of the Sword, is the first major operation under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and stabilise Afghanistan, which holds a presidential election on Aug. 20.

It was launched with insurgency violence at its highest since the Taliban's austere Islamist government was ousted in 2001 by U.S. and Afghan forces for failing to hand over al Qaeda leaders wanted over the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Violence has flared again throughout Afghanistan since the operation began on July 2, with attacks in traditional Taliban strongholds in the south and east as well as in relatively more peaceful areas in the north and west.

The Taliban backlash has put pressure on leaders in Washington and London, who say U.S. and other NATO-led troops have pushed back Taliban insurgents but that a lot of tough fighting remains to be done during the summer

Obama told Sky News on Saturday the United States and its allies would have to evaluate Afghanistan again after next month's election to see what other military or development steps might be needed. [ID:nLAL002272]

THIRD SOLDIER DIES

The latest two soldiers to be killed by a roadside bomb died in Helmand on Saturday, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

"The one attack in Helmand killed two Marines," said spokeswoman Lieutenant Commander Christine Sidenstricker.

Reuters AlertNet - Two U.S. soldiers killed, Afghan war heats up

 

[CrimsonWhite]

 

[strollingbones]

what amazes me cw....no one seems to care.....drudge had it on its headline for one day or so...now had it been gossip....drudge would leave it up for a week....i remember under bush the dead counts....people talked about how many died....etc..all the time...where are those people now? are is it less important because we have obama....and now we, as a people are ignoring the death count.

more gold star mothers...

 

[JW Frogen]

I was a soldier, we can die, and we should never expect anyone but our mother to care.

That is what all good soldiers must learn.

That and how to take a shower in the desert with a helmet full of water.

 

[Xenophon]

what amazes me cw....no one seems to care.....drudge had it on its headline for one day or so...now had it been gossip....drudge would leave it up for a week....i remember under bush the dead counts....people talked about how many died....etc..all the time...where are those people now? are is it less important because we have obama....and now we, as a people are ignoring the death count.

more gold star mothers...

It only mattered when Bush was in as it was a good club to beat him with.

Notice how little anyone now cares about 'our troops' now that BO is POTUS.

 

[strollingbones]

what amazes me cw....no one seems to care.....drudge had it on its headline for one day or so...now had it been gossip....drudge would leave it up for a week....i remember under bush the dead counts....people talked about how many died....etc..all the time...where are those people now? are is it less important because we have obama....and now we, as a people are ignoring the death count.

more gold star mothers...

It only mattered when Bush was in as it was a good club to beat him with.

Notice how little anyone now cares about 'our troops' now that BO is POTUS.

yes xen i have noticed that....as evidenced by the threads i have done on it since july 3rd...
seems no one really wants to hear it or see it...damped their holidays and all....as a country we need to remember service people are dying ...there is no "home front" sacrifice going on....it truly is a shame...that people do not care about those fighting ...or that obama has back down from bringing them home....

 

[editec]

Their lives were wasted, in my opinion.

 

[strollingbones]

jw...what is more precious than someone willing to die for you? i care...i would not feed my son to the war machines...but i do not think we should be idle about those who are dying and being wounded.

 

[strollingbones]

Their lives were wasted, in my opinion.

that is the shame of it all...isnt it ed...so many lives destroyed...so many wounded....when will people start seeing the number of wounded?

 

[JW Frogen]

jw...what is more precious than someone willing to die for you? i care...i would not feed my son to the war machines...but i do not think we should be idle about those who are dying and being wounded.

Nothing is more precious, once I was that precious.

Indeed if some one is not that willing, they will not be dying for us, we will all be dying.

 

[WillowTree]

I care! God Bless our troops!

 

[geauxtohell]

KABUL, July 12 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan

Fucking IEDs.

 

[strollingbones]

yes willow i know you care...that is what gets me...this is not a partisan issue as i have tried to explain to your rather thick skull...but i digress..this is an issue of being an american while american troops are dying.

theses are the images that haunt me...

the grave is a new grave...it is not in the gulf war part of the main post cematary at Ft. Bragg, NC
i know the areas that were added. i have been going to this place a while now. i ask before is there one of these in all military grave yards...but no one answered or no one knew. how can he or she be unknown in this day and age....

the pebbles left in rememberance...

the man with the expensive bottle of scotch....i didnt take any pictures of that..i was too taken by what was unfolding to think of that....who poured it all over a grave...and cried.

more people need to see what is going on.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

what amazes me cw....no one seems to care.....drudge had it on its headline for one day or so...now had it been gossip....drudge would leave it up for a week....i remember under bush the dead counts....people talked about how many died....etc..all the time...where are those people now? are is it less important because we have obama....and now we, as a people are ignoring the death count.

more gold star mothers...

Would you make your point clear here?

The suggestion that no one cares about the loss of US troops is absurd on it's FACE.

What part of "WAR" do you not understand?

Is it your desire that we set our national focus on the losses we are sustaining? What purpose would this serve?

Seriously: WHAT PURPOSE WOULD THAT SERVE?

Now as a general rule; those who focus on their losses tend to suffer fewer losses... in that they avoid that which promotes the liklihood of loss, such as offensive action; thus they realize fewer gains. Such was the case in the Bush reaction TO THIS SAME LEFTIST CRY TO FOCUS ON OUR LOSSES... he went on the defense... do we recall the recent history wherein the going on defense to reduce our losses produced a highly conducive envirnment for an effective insurgency? And do we likewise recall, that when we changed back to an offensive posture; we effectively routed that insurgency?

Now where the goal is to establish victory over a determined and capable enemy... THAT REQUIRES GAINS... ergo; does it serve that end to focus on that which would, at best, diminish the likelihood of meeting that end? Which FTR, AGAIN: the end is victory... you do know that right?

Or is your goal distinct from that of those Marines?

Now my position is; if we're going to be there, we should fight this war to win it; and one can't win a war, while one is focussed on not getting hurt. The goal of war is to inflict more hurt on the enemy, then they inflict on you.... and history has shown that Leftists, such as yourself and King Hussein of the US, will snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory through just such distractions as those for which you're seemingly advocating here... and their need for some negotiated settlement, compromise or truce.

The Taliban is wrong; we're right... either get on board with that or understand that you're part of the problem.

 

[Tech_Esq]

My son just deployed with the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division as a contractor supporting their LandWarrior system. He became a "Master LandWarrior" in preparation for a deployment in Iraq.

A picture of him when he was still in the Army appeared in Popular Mechanics a couple of years ago. My son in LandWarrior gear

As for Afghanistan, we aren't even thinking about it right yet. Read Michael Yon's blog. He pulls no punches and he's been following our guys on the front line since the beginning of Iraq. He's ex-Special Forces and for the troops not the commanders or any administration. When things were going bad in Iraq, he was out front saying things are fucked up here and the policy needs to be changed.

In one particularly compelling blog, he was with the commander of a unit that got ambushed. The commander found himself shot, lying on his back firing desperately into a shop where the shot had come from. They were isolated from the rest of the unit. Yon picked up a weapon and returned fire into the store and helped save the colonel. (A BIG FAT NO NO if you are a reporter and he was warned about it). They both got out when the Sergeant Major showed up with some additional troopies.

Yon's thought on Afghanistan:
We should really be thinking in terms of being there 100 years. Several of the other countries have 10 - 30 year outlooks already. Insufficient, but better than our unrealistic time frame.