Living by the Sword

Those who live by the sword will likely die by the sword a wise old saying goes. It was proved once again in Afghanistan last week when a U.S. military Chinook helicopter went down killing 30 elite American special operations soldiers.  

The U.S. military, and most of the U.S. media are still dancing and dodging around the facts and real cause behind the disaster; even though the Taliban took credit immediately. Not so the Bangkok Post, and other foreign media, which tell the nasty truth:

This was, in the opinion of officials in President Hamid Karzai's own U.S. backed government, a retaliation attack for the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

A Taliban commander, named Qari Tahir, with the assistance of four Pakistani nationals, reportedly set a trap to lure U.S. forces to a specific spot, and when they arrived there, all gung-ho and ready to roll, shot them down like so many ducks in a barrel. This was no lucky strike. It was planned and executed just like our military missions are planned and it worked all the same.

The American command received bogus “intelligence” that a big meeting was taking place in the Taliban dominated Sayd Abad district of Wardak Afghanistan. Access to this place could be gained only by one route through a narrow valley. The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would have to take to get there. The enemy waited on both sides of the valley for it to come, and when it did, they shot it to pieces with modern weaponry.

"Their loss is a stark reminder of the risks that our men and women in uniform take every single day on behalf of their country," said President Obama as he paid his respects to the dead at Dover Air Force Base where their remains were shipped home. "Day after day, night after night, they carry out missions like this in the face of enemy fire and grave danger," he added.

He’s right about the terrible risks, dangers, and the frequency with which they are faced, but wrong if he thinks these soldier’s unnecessary deaths were of any benefit to their country. They, like all the deceased foreign soldiers in Afghanistan before them, died for nothing. I sympathize with their families but that won’t change reality.

Americans, just like the Russians during the 1980’s, and every other invading army since ancient times, has fallen into a nasty Afghan trap by underestimating the dark, savage, and crafty powers that be among the tribal peoples of the rugged terrestrial and cultural landscape of Afghanistan.

Against the most state of the art and sophisticated military force ever arrayed against a poorly trained, ill-equipped, and disadvantaged enemy, they are fighting to the last man in their homeland for their way of life while we fight for nothing. Just as with Vietnam, they are losing most of the battles but winning the war. We kill 100 with our drones and our smart bombs while 500 more pop up for the fight.  

Now the news is that two of the Afghan insurgents responsible for the copter shoot-up were tracked down in an “exhaustive manhunt” and finally killed by a U.S. air strike. So claims U.S. Army Gen. John Allen. Maybe so; maybe they killed a few of them, but they aren’t the responsible ones reported by the foreign media. My guess is that the bad guys got away, and even if they didn’t, there are a lot more where they came from.

We’re certainly not going to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, from our own embarrassed government in this sad affair. In any case, the violence will continue until we Americans leave, and then it will be back to business as usual with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

All in a decade’s worth of futility for those who live by the sword.