“It was sheer terror. They’d strap gasoline cans to IEDs. Our soldiers burned alive. You’d hear them screaming, and you couldn’t do anything.”-Mack McDowell, retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant
May 13, 2012, ISAF reports two U.S./NATO troops killed in eastern Afghanistan by an explosion.
Also today, officials from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that two of their personnel were killed by Afghan cops. A soldier from the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, and an airman from the Royal Air Force, were shot dead in Helmand province on May 12, 2012.
One of the cops was killed, the other is missing.
In Kabul Province a member of the Afghan Peace Council was assassinated. This makes the second member of the Peace Council to be assassinated. Last year the head of the Council was killed.
On May 13, Kalifornia warmonger Dianne Feinstein gave an interview which was basically her rationalization for why the U.S. needs to stay: “Militarily, I think the Taliban are not going to beat us…….have a safe harbor in Pakistan and the Pakistanis are doing nothing to abate that safe haven……the Taliban has done is insinuate itself in a shadowy presence, with shadow governors. They controlled over a third of the land which people live. They expanded into the north, into the northeast. And while we were there in one province, they closed 14 schools in 17 districts and then they killed five education officials and wounded others.”
Feinstein, a Democrat and current chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been in political power since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, yet she hasn’t learned a goddamn thing from that history lesson!
Speaking of education, on May 9 the Ministry of Education reported more than 500 schools had been closed. Well that was for this year alone!
May 13, 2012, Afghan education officials now reveal that in 2011 at least 650 were closed due to the ongoing violence. At least 300,000 school aged kids were unable to go to school in 2011!
Out of the approximate 650 schools that were closed in 2011, only 30 were re-opened.
Another U.S. political nincompoop, Republican Mitt Romney, recent said “We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban.”
Where has he been? That was one of the primary goals of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001! Ten years later not only have the backward “Taliban” (who make up the majority of the Mujahideen) not been defeated, they’re gaining momentum! Just like what happened to the Soviets in the 1980s.
According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, the majority of U.S. Afghan war veterans support President Barack Obama, but only because they think he’s the best hope for getting out of the tar baby called Afghanistan.
24 hour, ISAF Joint Command Morning operational update for May 13, 2012: “Leader” captured in Logar province. There was an attempt to capture a second “leader”, but they got one “suspected” Mujahideen instead.
“Facilitator” captured in Kandahar Province.
Attempt to capture “leader” in Khost Province. Several Mujahideen captured.
Afghan government officials are reporting, separately from the ISAF report, that they have killed 18 Mujahideen, wounded 11 and captured 4.
Their military operations took place in Kapisa, Takhar, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Logar, Ghazni, Khost and Paktika provinces. Afghan Interior Ministry also added that occupying forces took part in the Afghan “led” operations.