Knowing the dangers involved in the drive from Kabul to Qalat, Tim decided to take the risk and drive down in a convoy of one vehicle. He needed to get his personnel to Qalat and had intended to drive down in a convoy last week, but problems occurred and the personnel was not in country for the move. Driving in a single vehicle gave us the advantage of anonymity, as large convoys are easily spotted and make for large targets. But driving alone entails the risk of not having backup in case of attack.
We armed ourselves with automatic weapons and chose the armored 4×4 Toyota pickup with red markings. The Toyota pickups are virtually everywhere in the Middle East and Central Asia, and because of this provides a level of camouflage. Haji, our Afghani driver who fought the Soviets with the Mujahideen, weaved through the rough rodes and chaotic early morning traffic in Kabul, then gunned it on the open road to Qalat. Haji is unmatched in his mastery of the Afghan roads, passing convoys of jingle trucks, farming vehicles, taxis, military convoys and local traffic. The 300 mile drive to Qalat took less than four hours, not bad on a two lane highway that weaves through mountains and towns. Along the road we passed the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ghazni, several Afghan National Army bases and numerous police outposts and checkpoints. We also encountered several U.S. Army and Afghan National Army patrols. Tim noted this is a marked increase in a security presence over the past few months.
Bill Roggio is on his way home. You can read his last dispatch from Afghanistan here
why aren’t you there kate..or are you? betcha dollars to doughnuts you can get there and I’ll go with, I hear Tim Hortons is hiring…
The pointed dearth of comments on this thread shows a healthy awareness that most of us aren’t qualified to comment on the day-to-day lives and moment-to-moment decisions of those who face their own mortality and the larger fight each day.
absolutely correct EBD my little brother is there.
With all due respect, if your little brother is there why on earth would you criticize Kate for drawing attention to the importance of what’s going on there?
I didn’t criticize, it was a sincere offer and if it sounded like criticism then my communication skills are definitely not up to snuff.
I heard ya kelly, all the best.
EBD:”a healthy awareness that most of us aren’t qualified to comment on” – amazing.
I really like the quality here.
Steve
Sorry kelly, I misread you.
no need to apologize whatsoever.
Nice to see a misunderstanding handled in a civil way.
Afghan, coalition forces kill 65 militants
AP on Yahoo ^ | 6/24/06 | AP
Posted on 06/24/2006 12:22:35 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan and coalition forces killed about 65 militants in two gunbattles in southern Afghanistan, the military said Saturday.
On Friday, troops came under fire from about 40 insurgents near the village of Mirabad northeast of the capital in southern Uruzgan province, the military said in a statement.
Most of the militants, who were firing from hidden positions in an orchard, ridgeline and compound near Mirabad, were believed killed, the coalition said.
No coalition or civilian injuries were reported.
In a separate assault, Afghan and coalition forces battled a large group of militants in the Zharie district of Kandahar province, killing about 25 during the three hours of fighting. …
freerepublic
maybe 300 k in less than 4 hours
There are definitely two sides to the coin of the way wars are covered today. In former combat arenas, we didn’t have the technology to embed and report minute-by-minute.
The advantages, of course, to the media of these instant reports is that there is no delay in reporting, which makes them exciting and immediate.
The disadvantages, however, are that our soldiers are under constant scrutiny, leading to constant ‘punditry’ on the part of media talking heads, politicians, and every Tom, Dick, and Harriet, as to whether or not they are doing the right thing, too little, or too much. In the case of the CBC and other left-leaning media outlets, our soldiers are nearly always doing the wrong thing, or not enough, or too much, etc.
In some ways, it must have been much easier “soldiering” when your manoeuvres weren’t play-by-play news fodder for everyone and his brother to criticize and second-guess as to what you could be doing differently.
Obviously, it taxes the morale of our troops. My hats off to all of our fighting troops; my heart goes out to every man and woman and their families, too often having to deal with the false “expertise” of a public which likes to think they’re entitled to comment on everything, whether or not they have a genuine clue about what’s going on “over there.”
Thanks, Kate, for keeping us informed.
Are there any laws which deal with treason as propogated by the media? There should be.
Regarding the AP article quoted by maz2 above:
These Taliban are the same organization that just a few days ago were using women and children as human shields in their attempting to retreat from combat with Afghan and Coalition troops.
Yet in that AP article, they are nevertheless labelled as “militants” and “insurgents”.
Why can’t the AP bring itself to label them as their behavior dictates: “terrorists” would be apt, as would “cowards”?
Also, as would the Geneva Convention’s label “unlawful combatants”, which renders such individuals legally liable, when captured, to summary execution, as it also does to captured spies and saboteurs.
Imagine for a minute if some US or other Coalition troops used Iraqi or Afghan women and children as human shields in a battle with Al Qaeda, Baathist or Taliban terrorists. The global outrage from The Usual Suspects on the left, in politics and in their MSM lickspittle propagandist allies, would be deafening and unrelenting. They’d be demanding court-martials, lengthy imprisonments, etc., etc. for such despicable behavior.
Of course, the Islamofascist terrorists are hypocritically, irrationally, immorally judged by a wholly different set of morals by The Usual Suspects in politics and in the MSM. After all, we know the US is the real war criminal, right? George Bush and Tony Blair are the real criminals, right?
And no amount of reasoning, no mountains of facts will change such diseased leftist prejudice.
Three hundred plus Saddam mass grave sites in Iraq? Irrelevant. Industrial grade shredders to kill prisoners, along with rape rooms in Saddam’s prisons? Not important. Dozens of civilians kidnapped and beheaded, to the accompaniment of chanting “Allah u Akhbar!”, all videotaped for world-wide Internet distribution? Not a problem. Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamists in general despising feminists and gays, advocating gays be killed? Not important. Five hundred or more nerve gas artillery shells WMDs found in Iraq? Somehow, they don’t count.
Because…It’s George Bush and Tony Blair who are the monsters, right?
Dave, don’t forget Harper, too. And now, counting down to asinine contributions from steved and neutralsam in 3…2…1…
(oh God, I hope I’m wrong…)
Some interesting talk between opposites stopping for a drink on a jeep ride through bush roads and small towns in Lebanon. Michael Totten with friends and strangers.
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Firas and Joe went into the store and rummaged through the refrigerator. They came back with four green bottles of locally brewed Almaza beer with the caps already popped.
“Cheers!” Firas said and we clinked our bottles and began to drink.
“Tell me something, guys,” Joe said. “Lots of Americans come here and think we like Hezbollah. Why? We hate Hezbollah!”
I tried to explain that most Americans don’t know much about Lebanon, just as most Lebanese don’t know much about the U.S. Some Americans who do go to Lebanon can’t quite believe that Sunni Muslims and Druze have as hard a time with Hezbollah as the Christians. It just doesn’t compute.
“Do you guys want peace with Israel then?” I said.
“So the embassy sent you!” Joe only half-jokingly said.
“Making peace between states is not the same as making peace between people,” Firas said. “We may be sitting here as friends at this moment, but I am thinking of the time in the future when I will kill you.” Then he checked himself. “I am not talking about us, this is just a general example of what sometimes happens.”
“Why do we have to be at war with Israel all the time?” Joe said to Firas.
“Don’t say it, dude,” Firas said.
“I know people from the south who did very well under the Israeli occupation,” Joe said. “They made money, they were safe, and they were happy. Under Hezbollah it is hell.”
“Those are just personal stories,” Firas said.
“Don’t believe everything you read, dude,” Joe said.
Firas took off his shirt, walked over to the jeep, and pulled out a rifle.
“Shoot this gun,” he said and tried to hand it over to Dan.
======
Nobody gets shot, he just wants to fire the rifle towards the mountain. They do and someone not far away yells a protest.
They make it clear that everyone has rifles. From:
http://www.MichaelTotten.com
TG