UPDATE: US Marines getting it done against the Taliban
Apr 30 at 10:10pm by Macranger
Here’s the video:
Outside this video report there has been virtually no coverage of the offensive, most likely because it’s going so well. They’ve taken the town of Garmsir, a Taliban stronghold and up through today they have suffered no casualties.
Bush “Bitch Slaps” News Media
Apr 29 at 3:03pm by Macranger
Go get ‘em George! Same old defeatist media, same old tired assed trick questions. Bush locks their heals but good!
“Jihadist!” That’s what I’m talking about!
Marines Launch Offensive against Taliban
Apr 28 at 10:10pm by Macranger
“OUTSIDE GARMSER, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan’s most violent province early Tuesday, the first major American operation in the region in years.
Several hundred Marines pushed into the town of Garmser in predawn light in an operation to drive out militants, stretching NATO’s presence into an area littered with poppy fields and classified as Taliban territory.
Helmand province is the world’s largest opium poppy growing region and has been a flashpoint of the increasingly violent insurgency the last two years. British troops—who are responsible for Helmand—have faced fierce battles on the north end of Helmand.
U.S. commanders say Taliban fighters had been expecting an assault and were setting up improvised explosive devices. It wasn’t known how much resistance the Marines would face in Garmser, where the British have a small base at the town’s edge but whose main marketplace is closed because of the Taliban threat.
Maj. Tom Clinton, the American commander at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, a British outpost 10 miles west of Garmser, said the Taliban had undoubtedly seen the Marines moving into the area in recent days.
But he said the fact that the Marines were assaulting the town by helicopter and were moving through by foot was likely a surprise.
“There’s all kinds of reports of (Taliban) commanders telling their guys to grab their stuff and get out there” to fight, said Clinton, 36, of Swampscott, Massachusetts. “It’s no secret they know we’re here. It’s just a question of when and where” an assault would happen.
The Marines’ mission is the first carried out by U.S. forces this far south in Helmand province in years. An operation late last year to take back the Taliban-held town of Musa Qala on the north end of Helmand involved U.S., British and Afghan forces.”
I guess we could say that is more than a little pushback to Karzai’s criticism of American/British conduct of the war.
