Push In S. Afghanistan Sends a Message

(CBS)  It's the first big test of President Obama's new strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan. Thousands of U.S. Marines are on the move, deep in enemy territory. Their mission: to flush the Taliban out of a key province in the south ahead of next month's presidential election. At least one Marine has been killed in the fighting.

Meanwhile, a search is underway for an American soldier who was kidnapped by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border.

The push into southern territory is as much a statement as it is an operation, reports CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan.

And the message is clear: 4,000 Marines surging forward into the Helmand Valley - the first major assault under Mr. Obama's strategy to turn the tide in Afghanistan.

"We dropped into a few places that nobody had been," said Marine Corps Capt. Drew Schoenmaker.

The Helmand Valley is infested with Taliban fighters. Just days before today's offensive, Marines already based there provoked a ferocious fight with their enemy. The marines exchanged gunfire with Taliban fighters for hours.

It took air strikes to subdue a determined enemy. But experience shows that when faced with a much larger force, Taliban fighters typically melt away. That's what's expected in the major operation now underway.

It's how Taliban fighters - like the ones captured by "60 Minutes" cameras - have lived to fight another day - emerging stronger every year.

"I have a very narrow definition of success when it comes to our national security interests and that is that al Qaeda and its affiliates cannot set up safe havens from which to attack Americans," Mr. Obama said recently.

U.S. and British forces have taken the Helmand Valley before But it's always slipped back into enemy hands.

This time is supposed to be different:

"We're there for the long term," said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, "and we have enough troops this time around," a TK spokesman said.

Helmand is not the only battleground for U.S. troops. Hundreds of miles to the east, where the fight is just as intense, a U.S. soldier has been kidnapped after leaving a small U.S. compound in the middle of the night.

CBS News has learned that not long after the soldier disappeared, U.S. intelligence picked up radio chatter that he had been kidnapped; they know he's already been sold to another group of Afghans; but no direct contact has been made with the kidnappers.

This incident and the fight in Helmand, are just the start of what promises to be a long, hot summer as U.S. forces battle to stabilize the country ahead of national elections in August.

[mcintoshlou]

Something doesn't compute here Hotlist
by Jed Lewison

Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 08:00:07 AM PDT

Washington Post headline:

Sanford Didn't Use State Money For His Affair, S.C. Officials Say

From the very same article:

He [Sanford] reimbursed the state $3,304 this week for part of an official state-sponsored trip to Brazil and Argentina in June 2008 during which he spent time with his mistress, Maria Belén Chapur, said Sanford's spokesman, Joel Sawyer.

So here's the question: why the heck is Sanford reimbursing the state for his trip to Argentina if public funds were never used during his affair?

That just doesn't make any sense. If he didn't use public funds, how could there by anything to reimburse?

And if he did use public funds, isn't this like saying a bank robber didn't do anything wrong because he (or she) returned the stolen money?


YEAH, IT SENDS A MESSAGE ALL RIGHT,

THE MESSAGE IS THAT THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN OWNED BY A BUNCH

OF KKK TYPE HYPOCRITES FOR THE LAST THIRTY YEARS, REPUBLI'CON'S

ARE FASCISTS LOOKING FOR OIL

[gravyboat4000]

"As 4,000 Marines Try to Recapture South from Taliban Ahead of Elections".

They should call this Operation Deja Vu.

[mcintoshlou]

YES, IT SOUND JUST LIKE SOME OF THE PROPAGANDA OUT OF THE VIETNAM WAR,


AN EXCELLENT POINT MR. GRAVY

[xlib]

Ah, the messiah's surge is getting good press. Funny how that works, isn't it?
I just loved his speech on the day some of our troops left Iraqi cities. He cited "obstacles that our military had to overcome". Well, mr totus, those obstacles were right here at home. The likes of reid, pelosi, durbin, kerry, murtha and YOU are the biggest obstacles. When you and your party "leaders" called them murderers, rapists, terrorists. When you said "this war is lost".
Our son was serving in Iraq at the time of the Haditha story and murtha skewered those Marines and the press ran with it. There was no investigation at that time yet your media and murtha had them guilty. Your murtha has yet to apologize to those men.
According to our son, all those statements, all those stories were heard and read over there. Yea, great job libs.
When's soros running a story about the messiah's surge?

[specialty8]

Obama said the Iraq surge would not work so why is he doing it again? Seems he likes about all of the Bush policies and being in Washington was not the vaction he thought it would be.

[mcintoshlou]

BECAUSE HIS COMMANDERS IN THE FIELD WANTED TO TRY IT,

SOMETHING YOU REPUBLI'CON'S ALWAYS TALK ABOUT BUT NEVER REALLY DID

[sean58z]

NATO is mistaken. Helmand Valley could easily fall to Kabul. Afghanis should be the spearhead. They have the natural intelligence and understanding of attack. The Marines are open to enemy fire. Afghanis use covert tactics. Helmand Valley holds a great deal of the enemy Combatants. Poppy fields are unimportant to this issue. The crop is simply an average opiate plant. The Felons take little interest in street heroin. Their narcotics are methamphetamine, PCP, LSD, and sinsemilla. They might dabble in potent hashish and psycho-mushrooms.

[mrjoshcan]

Watch a US dwindling withdrawal coincidental towards royal parasympathomimetic indigenous throughout Afghanistan and the far Middle East.

[jms_cheung]

Hope the American & Coalition forces would NOT repeat the silly mistake in Iraq....after wasted billions of dollars $ and more than 4300 precious lives.... only to be branded as UNWELCOMED AGGRESSORS and get lost ! Let the UN be responsible for bringing peace to that troubled land..to blast away all terrorists/suicide-bombers! America or no one country should be responsible for the peace of Afghanistan.

[mrjoshcan]

Watch a US dwindling withdrawal coincidental towards royal parasympathetics common throughout Afghanistan and the far Middle East.

[ajjaxtheleast]

"Push in Afghanistan Sends a Message"

"sends a message",,,Ultra-over-used, abused phrase,,,

Hate the sight of it,,,

The "message" usually is,,,,,We can, and if you dont shape up
we WILL, cut your's off,,,,we dont want to,, and were holding
our power selves back,,,but you better take heed, dude,,,

But in SENDING today's message there was in their own
inbox a RECEIVED message with just as condescending a tone,,,

,,,",,however we would be amenable to a prisoner swap.".

[ajjaxtheleast]

About a year and a half ago it was said that an oil
pipeline was to be built across Afghanistan to
eliminate the need for some European countries,
dependence on Russian oil.

If anybody has a better reason for us to be in
Afghanistan killing people let's hear it.

Only NYT points out a less than universal acceptance
by the war-weary Afghans of our "visiting" troops.

"Winning hearts and minds" was and still is the
most arrogant phrase of the last eight-and-a-
half years.

[nofoolling]

There's no doubt this current escalation in "Warring for Dollars" has little to do with any of the lame excuses our bloodstained politicians have quoted.

I think the term "Collateral Damage" when referring to innocent women and children bombed to smithereens is equally as insulting to humanity.