The one thing that really bugs me about this "war on terror", among many other things, is that we seem to not want to see how sausage is made. Americans seem to have the 'Fuck Yeah!' moments of blowing up shit but they don't want to open there eyes to the reality of war.
This topic was brought up when it was reported that Osama Bin Laden was killed. The notion that we got to see Saddam, this terrorist that we created, get hung for his crimes against humanity and what not. So it was a bit strange that we didn't get to see any proof of death for Osama. Again, the reality of war, or how sausage was made was being covered as to not offend our sensitive eyes.
But really, this all goes well beyond the releasing of the Osama pictures or anything like that. I think we're well past all that anyway. It's just plainly obvious that we don't really care about the war and will gladly throw money towards it as long as it "protects our freedoms" never really seeing what we are doing to the country and its people because we have become so desensitize to the reality of war.
This leads me to believe that we probably should release more footage of the dead. For a long time now we wouldn't even show the hundreds and hundreds of returning caskets from Iraq because that wasn't what people in America wanted to see from our news media. We blind ourselves to what the cost of giving others freedom truly is.
Maybe we're just too afraid to see the ugly truth of what our actions are doing to other lands? I really don't know. Oddly enough it's only when our own men and women die out there in some sort of big story that we see that in fact, wars are bloody and people can and will be hurt in them.
Take for example last Saturday when we got the realities of war and the death count displayed across the evening news....
this isn't an amputee falling out of a roller coaster it's occupying soldiers being killed while on duty so i think we're allowed to feel good about it. Seeing as these dudes committed murder and kidnapping on a weekly basis sort of makes me feel pretty much numb to the fact that they died horribly.31 U.S. troops killed in Afghan crash
KABUL, Afghanistan—A helicopter crash in Afghanistan’s eastern Wardak province ended in the death of 31 U.S. special operation troops and seven Afghan soldiers, the country’s president said Saturday. It was the highest number of American casualties recorded in a single incident in the decade-long war.
A senior administration official said the NATO helicopter apparently was shot down. The Taliban claimed to have brought the helicopter down with a rocket attack, but they have been known to make exaggerated claims in the past.
NATO confirmed the overnight crash and said there “was enemy activity in the area.” But it said it was still investigating the cause. The alliance was conducting a recovery operation at the site, it said, without releasing details or a casualty figure.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that NATO had attacked a house in Sayd Abad where insurgents were gathering Friday night, killing eight fighters. The Taliban then downed the helicopter, he said.
....
Meanwhile, NATO troops attacked a house and inadvertently killed eight members of a family, including women and children, in the southern Helmand province, an Afghan government official said Saturday.
NATO has come under harsh criticism in the past for accidentally killing civilians during operations against suspected insurgents. However, civilian death tallies by the United Nations show the insurgency is responsible for most war casualties involving noncombatants.
The deaths bring to 334 the number of coalition troops killed this year in Afghanistan, and 11 this month.
I know it sounds wrong, but I was really hoping that they got shot down on the way to the raid instead of on the way back from it. Let's just take a moment to focus on all the lives saved in this "crash". Oh, what's that? Everyone on board died? Exactly.
These aren't people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They're occupying soldiers being killed while on duty. If the articles about this were more accurate maybe people would think differently about this. Then again, the title "Death Squad shot down" would preclude the use of a byline and really wouldn't sell a hit ABC television series.
You also shouldn't feel too bad for them for the sole reason that they died doing what they loved - Raining death and fire all over the Afghan countryside.
Soon after the "crash" it came out that the majority of those killed in the helicopter "crash" in Afghanistan were Navy SEALs. Apparently 20 of the people killed in this "crash" were from the team of proud heroes that were sent to shoot an unarmed highly opinionated 60 year old CIA operative/civil engineer in the face earlier this year.
Wait a minute.. let that sink in. The Taliban killed the guys that killed Bin Laden. So now the people who supposedly found and killed Bin Laden, of which no evidence has been released and the body is now in the bottom of the ocean being eaten by fish have themselves been mysteriously killed.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Or maybe this is just Osama's revenge from beyond the grave.
We're all clear on the fact that this is the plot of every spy thriller ever, right? Like now the US can literally go on TV and say "we speak without fear of contradiction: we killed Bin Laden, everyone who might know otherwise is dead, and we totally killed the guys who killed them too. Then all you do after that is write your names properly in the history book and jump right into the land of Disney movies about Team 6.
The only thing you need to be aware of is to keep the conspiracy theory going, the team that took out these Taliban fighters needs to die under mysterious circumstances. Preferably a series of car crashes over the next year or two. Maybe if we're lucky it just turns into a massive cover up operation where the whole US Army ends up dying in "accidents" to cover up from the "accidents" they caused to kill the previous group.
Oh yeah, in case you forgot, the director of the Hurt Locker is supposed to be making a Seal Team 6 movie. Not to mention that we're also going to get a video game based on them. So perhaps a "Get shot down by a random fucking rocket" is a level in the official licensed army propaganda...er, I mean Video Game.
And wasn't ABC/Disney/Buena Vista shooting to make a television series based on the Seals team? Welp, I guess we all know how season 1 ends now.
Before you get all judgmental on me for not being all gung-ho about this elite SEALS special forces, may I remind you that this special operations troops are responsible for the ultra deadly "night raids" that basically murder people in their homes:
Matthew Hoh, formerly the senior U.S. foreign service officer in Zabul province before his 2009 resignation, was familiar with the target list for SOF kill or capture raids. He told IPS the list included Afghans holding every kind of non-combat function in the Taliban network, including propagandists and workers who make Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).I mean, maybe I sound like a dick asking the obvious question that should be on everyone's mind, but I figure I'll bring up for discussion how the number of Troops killed in this one attack is likely more than the number of Al-Qaeda in the entirety of Afghanistan.
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Night raids generally kill Taliban personnel in their own homes, and thus outside the context of a military operation.
If the same humanitarian law criterion used in counting victims of Taliban assassinations were applied to the alleged Taliban targeted in SOF night raids, the victims of killings during those raids would have to be considered civilian casualties.
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The continued refusal of ISAF, under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, to release that information suggests that it would reveal a very high proportion of the several thousand Afghans killed last year as "Taliban" were simply civilian supporters or victims of misidentification or a malicious intelligence tip.
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But from May through July 2010, according to ISAF figures, SOF units launched 3,000 night raids – a 50-fold increase over the rate of only a year earlier – in which they reported killing nearly 1,100 Taliban "leaders" and "rank and file".
Though that's even if you think that Al Qaeda actually exist in any form other than in the fevered imaginations of infantile right-wing fanatics. Just look at the end of the AJE article on this if you really think these brave men and women were just protecting America's interest:
"Elsewhere, in the Nad Ali district in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, up to eight civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike on Friday", governor Shadi Khan said.
"A group of Taliban attacked a foot patrol of NATO forces," Khan said.
"Subsequently, an air strike targeted the house of an imam of a mosque in the area. As a result the imam, his wife and six of their children were killed.""And according to AJE, the rocket was fired after a night raid just as the helicopter was taking off. That means that 30 Americans got killed by some dude probably hiding behind a shed and shooting an RPG from 30 feet away.
You just know that this means that those "surgical strikes" are going to mean "Obliterate entire mountainsides" instead of just going into individual villages.
It is interesting how awkwardly they're forcing it in that these are just "crashes", if you haven't noticed how I have written that in this piece. Really odd how these crashes just happen to occur after they get shot up by the resistance fighters. Rather than having to admit that American aircraft are "shot down"
Even today Obama's still calling this a "crash". Why yes, I'm sure that rocket had nothing to do with it. Though, there is a real good chance it just fell straight the fuck out of the sky because they do that a whole lot when you think about the history of choppers in combat. Or maybe getting shot didn't make the helicopter crash. It just triggered the excited delirium which caused the helicopter to "crash".
At least there's some good to come out of all these reports. I do mean Good in a sort of ironic way. You really have to love all the comments about this incident. It's really the one pure example of the Internet saying the darnedest things.
Just wrote this to my congressman. Does this make me crazy?
Congressman:
I know you are going to think I’ve read too many conspiracy novels and may never again pay serious attention to anything I write to you about but regarding the deaths of SEAL team 6 members in Afghanistan, I want to know if you are going to be demanding investigations and hearings into the State Department, DOJ, Obama himself, the DOD and the CIA about this.
Why?
Because the Taliban are not smart enough to do this sort of stuff on their own. To say they were “lucky” would also be a stretch.
The only way this could have happened is if they were given the intelligence from someone about the movement of the team.
Sincerely,
Dearest douche, your letter is going straight into the trash. Sincerely, reality.
I can’t help but think this was targetting, and I’m tring to think back didn’t that ignorant bozo biden let out it was seal team 6 that got bin laden? I remembr gates and panenetta were furious over Biden’s assinne mouth balbbrering on about this.
I just do not understand why so many extremely valuable, highly trained SEALS (and others) would be allowed on the same helicopter, given the obvious risk should it be shot down. This is a tragic loss.
Then there's this gem:
Maybe it wasn’t the ISI…
Team O didn’t want any books coming out on the bin Laden raid…
and dead men tell no tales…
I mean, it's not like these guys don't have ample enough reason to just start shooting random helicopters, do they?
Then again, don't worry guys, cause we'll get them damn towel heads. Them pesky sand nigga's can't run away from the swift hand of justice for too long, unless your name is Osama, in which case it'll be a good ten years before they catch them... oh wait. I guess the the narrative just got better:
"ladies and gentlemen....we got him!!"Why yes, "We're absolutely sure to within a 50% certainty that we got the camel jockey that actually fired the shot". Hmmmmm, so they killed the unnamed unknown guy who shot down the chopper? Man, the Obama admin and its spin doctors are starting to get as patently ridiculously as the Bush admin in terms of not even able to tell good lies anymore.
US: Strike kills militants who downed US chopper
Reuters
WASHINGTON — An air strike by NATO-led forces in Afghanistan killed Taliban fighters, including a local leader, who were responsible for a weekend helicopter crash that killed 38 troops, the worst single incident in 10 years of war.
"The strike killed Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who fired the shot associated with the Aug. 6 downing of the CH-47 helicopter, which resulted in the deaths of 38 Afghan and coalition service members," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
The statement did not say explicitly that the Taliban fighters had shot the helicopter down, although it was the clearest indication yet that was the likely cause.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan also announced the same news.
"We dealt with them in a kinetic strike," General John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon.
I'm really surprised that there isn't a little throwaway line right at the end about how 12 children and a house full of puppies also died as collateral damage in the strike. You know, like how it has been showing up in just about every other news piece about our tragedy mounted above and beyond any sort of death of an innocent.
But hey, at least now they're associating the rocket with "the crash".. or are they? The Taliban fighters may not have shot down the helicopter, however, the Taliban fighters who shot down the helicopter were killed, hence, the Taliban fighters shot down the helicopter.
I can picture them now just cursing about the fact that in order to say we killed these people we have to bestow on them on the title of people, it's hard being a soldier you know, we can never have our cake and eat it too. Dehumanize these people too far and it devalues the kills. Fuck! Now I have PTSD from all this head spinning.
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