posted on October 19, 2001 09:35:32 PM new
AP) - About 100 U.S. commandos carried out a
secretive operation in the Taliban stronghold of
southern Afghanistan, opening a new phase of the
war on terrorism after nearly two weeks of
punishing airstrikes, U.S. officials said Friday
night. Officials said the commandos returned to
base after several hours inside the country. There
was no word on possible casualties.
posted on October 19, 2001 10:28:01 PM new
"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon announced Friday night that two U.S. military personnel were killed in a helicopter accident in Pakistan, the first casualties of the U.S. military campaign against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Sources told CNN this helicopter was not among those that went into Afghanistan in a Special Operations mission. Instead, it was a search-and-rescue helicopter playing a support role, standing by in Pakistan in case it was needed to go into Afghanistan and rescue anyone."
So the forklift guy was the first casualty, and now these guys are the first casualities too. That's the beauty of this thing, every time, it's like the first time.
posted on October 20, 2001 05:35:57 AM new
That's what they'll do. The two in the helicopter are the first in a military operation, the forklift is the first in the overall campaign. Still to come will be the firsts in a combat operation with firsts by enemie action and first by non hostile action. There will be other firsts as they find names for their causes. The idea is to dispurse the deaths over as wide a field as possible so that each of the nuumbers will be smaller and less alarming to the folks back home. Successful accounting will result in so many different total figures that the media can be made to report whatever number is deemed to be the most politically advantageous at any given time.
It's a game begun in Vietnam with the famous body count measures of success. There is always an advantaage in being able to report a smaller figure for US casualties than enemy ones, and in desert storm they refined the rules substantially. It's somewhat amazing to see now that some 183 deaths occured in that campaign when I clearly remember the total reported at 22 during the coverage and followup.
posted on October 20, 2001 08:28:23 AM new
"This is not Vietnam.
Jess"
That's the truth, but some adminstration guy already made the "not Vietname" comparison a few weeks ago.
The adminstration has made clear that we won't be getting information about what's going on as we did in Vietnam. From an adminstration viewpoint, that was the problem in Vietnam - the adminstration was telling us one thing, but the reporters were telling us, and showing us, something else.
Now we've learned from our mistakes, so the answer is - cut off the access of the reporters. And if Al Jazeera or another non-U.S. news service reports something different from what we're being fed, we'll just dismiss it as anything foreign being inherently suspect.
posted on October 20, 2001 03:43:43 PM new
"There will be other firsts as they find names for their causes. The idea is to dispurse the deaths over as wide a field as possible so that each of the nuumbers will be smaller and less alarming to the folks back home."
posted on October 20, 2001 04:22:25 PM new
I really don't see the point. People in any large organization fall off docks, have forklift accidents, crash their delivery trucks. This is not used in an elaborate deception to prevent you from learning 3 people died getting you your pack of twinkies.
Vietnam taught the military that people get squeamish with gore at breakfast. The crime of Vietnam was that it was a political war and thousands of Americans were killed unnecessarily. So future military operations were run by the military. In a military operation you cannot define an objective and then have a congessman define how it is to be accomplished.
