Marines: We Need More Afghan Soldiers

Offensive to Clear Out Taliban from Helmand Province Needs Support, General Says; U.S. Soldier Killed on Recon Patrol

(CBS/AP)  The top Marine in a U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan said he needs more Afghan soldiers to help clear the Taliban from the nation's poppy-growing region.

Marines Brig. General Larry Nicholson told Pentagon reporters Wednesday that he'd like more U.S. troops too, but that they're not necessary.

Nicholson said the greatest danger to the 4,000 U.S. troops leading the operation that began a week ago in Helmand province is unrelenting heat he described "as hot as fire."

There are about 650 Afghan army soldiers and police involved in the operation. He also said it's not clear where the Taliban who have been pushed out have gone.

Meanwhile, a U.S. service member was killed on patrol in western Afghanistan on Thursday, while insurgents in the east attacked police posts and a government building, sparking a battle that killed six policemen and 21 insurgents, officials said.

The American, who was not identified, was killed during "a combat reconnaissance patrol" in Farah province, the U.S. military said, without providing other details.

As of Tuesday, at least 646 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. Of those, the military reports 479 were killed by hostile action.

In neighboring Helmand province, a British soldier died Tuesday night in an explosion, the British Defense Ministry said. He was the seventh British soldier killed in Afghanistan in a week, the ministry said.

The attacks against government facilities started Tuesday in the Barghe Matal district of Nuristan province and continued into the following day, spokesman Zemerai Bashary said.

Hundreds of insurgents attacked the police posts and a government center in Barghe Matal, Bashary said.

"We are working on a plan to send reinforcements," Bashary said.

Insurgents historically used Nuristan's mountainous and heavily wooded terrain as a base for operations. The remote province borders Pakistan's tribal area, where insurgents are also active.

The Obama administration has declared that eliminating militant havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan is vital to its goals of defeating al Qaeda and winning the war in Afghanistan.

U.S. Marines on the ground in Afghanistan
NATOchannel.tv produced the video below showing Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines conducting Operation Strike of the Sword. The battalion met no resistance from the Taliban, but several IEDs were found.


Watch CBS Videos Online

[babooph]

More factually ,we need ALL Afghan troops.

[pensacola8-2009]

The heat in Afghanistan is awful, but so are the sub-zero freezing winters.

[nofoolling]

20 minutes BEFORE building #7 at the world trade center fell, the BBC announced that bldg #7 had fallen down.

10 minutes BEFORE bldg #7 fell down, a New York Fire Captain warns his men, "Move away from #7, they?re gonna blow the bldg."

http://911blogger.com/node/10025 for both of the above facts RECORDED LIVE.
Until you do ? you don?t know the truth.

Folks, we been snookered and led into war on false pretense. Witness 962 publicly repeated lies (wmd, wmd, wmd) ie the sky is falling.

All the argument for strong national security is tainted and manipulated by the military industrial machine, which must from time to time gear-up and produce weapons of war to stay profitable. Thus the Vietnam war, thus the current wars, all for oil and military industrial profits, and of course to scare us into believing there is a hidden enemy they must protect us from as they take our freedoms.

And "We the People" are simply pawns in these ongoing scams and hoaxes. The latest being the totally rigged 911 demolition of the Twin Towers to make us hate folks in the middle-east, and then we attack there with troops and exterminate over 500,000 humans making them hate us.

Presto instant war.

Stop the war, start the war crime trials!

[YuSoWrong]

Schizophrenia sometimes begins as mere paranoia.

[nofoolling]

You hit the nail on the head in so many ways. Of course the American government conspiracy theory is a joke. It is pretty obvious the buildings were planned demolitions because skyscrapers have NEVER collapsed due to fire (and 3 did at one time). It is equally obvious it was all about oil since these corporations run the government.

by noloyalisti July 8, 2009 2:11 PM PDT

You are exactly right.

Anyone who has ever watched a building being demolished on purpose knows that if you're going to do this you have to get at the under-infrastructure of the building to bring it down. Peter Jennings, ABC News 9/11/2001

In perfect conditions the maximum temperature that can be reached by hydrocarbons such as jet fuel burning in air is 1520° F (825° C). When the World Trade Center collapsed the deeply buried fires would have been deprived of oxygen and their temperatures would have significantly decreased.

One week after 911

The temperature at the core of "the pile," is near 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to fire officials, who add that the fires are too deep for firefighters to get to. [ABC News, 9/18/01]

Why was the temperature at the core of "the pile" nearly 500° F hotter than the maximum burning temperature of jet fuel a full seven days after the collapses?

The picture at the very bottom of the website listed below shows what appears to be a classic thermite signature (which burns at about 2500 degrees), from explosives typically used on core girders in controlled demolitions. Or perhaps you could explain how the core girders shown were sheared so exactly and melted as is clearly shown? This may be as close to the ?smoking gun? as logic demands.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/thermite.html?q=thermite.html

Keep asking questions.

[armyoftwelve]

Everyone is carrying M16 carbines now. Things have changed so much since I was in. You would hate to be part of a .50 cal team over there, given all of the heat and the dust.

We should be making VERY heavy use of UAV's there. It would be a good idea to assign one to each platoon. Spy "dust" would probably be a good idea too.

[ajjaxtheleast]

A marine's lament,,,
"Cant find any traitors in this here country to
work with us,what's a marine to do??"

Walk up to any Taliban dude and,,,,if you're able to
work a forward dash into your question, ask him,,
"What was 9/11 all about?",,,That right ,,he would'nt
have a clue what the fu__k you're talking about,,,,

Saying that these stoned-out religious nuts
were capable of having planned 9/11 or were ever straight
enough from drugs to notice anyone in their country
planning anything is silly,,,,AND,,,

"planning" 9/11??,,,Get real!,,,9/11 in it's extent
was never "planned",,,Flying airplanes into
buildings is what was planned,,,This time the bear
just got lucky and the towers collapsed.

Anyway how would anyone in Afghanistan practicing
to fly airplanes into buildings without an airplane
to practice on have been recognized as someone
practicing to fly airplanes into buildings without a
banner reading,,,"WERE PRACTICING TO FLY AIRPLANES
INTO BUILDINGS"??,,,

Did the Saudi's fly in a Bowing 747 and practice on it?

And this,,,this "harboring " of those who planned 9/11
is ALL that's been layed to the Taliban,.,,nothing else,,,
,,,which itself is likely unprovable.

One way or another,,, were in Afghanistan fer oil, Earl.

[noloyalisti]

You hit the nail on the head in so many ways. Of course the American government conspiracy theory is a joke. It is pretty obvious the buildings were planned demolitions because skyscrapers have NEVER collapsed due to fire (and 3 did at one time). It is equally obvious it was all about oil since these corporations run the government.

[armywife199]

Again, you can thank the Dems who won't let us use our own...Not in our back yard!!! Drill here!!!! Drill NOW!!!

[babooph]

Our military is far too valuable to be wasted in these foolish ventures. They are not designed to be a police force for the world& SHOULD NOT BE!

[noloyalisti]

We lost in Iraq, everyone did. Over four thousand troops and two trillion dollars at least. For what?

We should never have gone into the invasion and occupation for corporations to control oil. It was based on lies by the war criminals in the Bushoccio Crime Family. That guy was a loser at EVERYTHING. A completely unqualified moron and real stupid and uneducated to boot. I guess that is what happen when big corporations run everything. They just have puppets in their government.

[armywife199]

Yes indeed we could have reacted just like Clinton to previous Osama bombings...clinton...quivering .... never stood for anything

[YuSoWrong]

Does the noloyalisti crime family have a better plan for the rackets on the west side?

[noloyalisti]

This is just another quagmire. We are so stupid we can't even remember what happened to the Soviet Union when they tried to manage an unmanageable country. Bring them home now before we lose yet another war like Iraq and Vietnam before that.

[Joe_NY_15]

We didn't lose in Iraq, we won the war.....This is a quagmire that Obama is continuing and furthering....we are stupid, for irresponsibly electing a totally unqualified community organizer to the postion of President....you are right, we are stupid for electing such an amateur

[nofoolling]

Too late!

But the point is not to win a war and come home. The point is similar to Vietnam, where the objective was to amass as many billions in profits before they were forced to stop.

Thats why they didnt mind losing the Vietnam or Iraq wars, the point isn't necessarily to win, but to make $$$ while they tell us lies about freedom and protection for as long as they possibly can.

Obama is only picking up where Darth the Cheney, God of Invented War (wmd, wmd) and the Bush crime syndicate left off.

I can hardly wait to see who the next annointed bad guys are in the long running drama "Warring for Dollars."

[underdogus09]

11 NATO troops killed in 2 days...7 yankee doodles
Obama's Viet-Nam...

[sean58z]

The Marines should not trust the Rebels. The Enemy relies on drug-induced psychosis by methamphetamine, PCP, strong hashish, and powerful mushrooms to prepare for battle. Kabul must use more Afghan Soldiers in this war.

[credibility2]

Stop blaming everything on Bush. He's out of office. Blame Obama for dragging his feet on getting more troops in this area. It's pitiful that the media gave more coverage to the Michael Jackson insanity and virtually no coverage on the our troops being killed over their in the past week or so.

[jwesel1]

The troops died because they were too stupid to listen to their conscience and joined the military in hope of Uncle Sam paying their college tuition

[YuSoWrong]

The troops died trying to kill the scum of the earth, some of whom being cowards themselves can't fight but can only blog.

[TNisgoodenoughforme]

Seems to me if we can get local help then we don't need to be there. I love our warriors but if we are there to help them & they won't help themselves then it time to come back hom.

[talk_down_2_you]

IBsteve how old are you 12 or 13, don't you have any memory whatsoever as to how and why we are fighting the Taliban?

Bush lost this war when he allowed the Taliban and their leaders to simply walk away when we had them cornered. Daddy Bush and demi-god Reagan fed the weapons to Osama Bin laden that allowed the Taliban to inflict so many causualties on the Russians that they saw no profit in staying and this is what put the Taliban in power in the first place, our Bush-CIA feeding weapons to the Taliban.

Does anyone on this board think the US and it's public cares one bit about Afghan freedom. It's about oil pipelines and controlling strategic roots of oil and drug commerce and little else.

Get off your high horses and stop blaming Obama for yet another Bush debacle. Remeber he allowed Osama to simply walk away and we will pay the price for years to come for this lousy Bush mistake which he never admitted. A compulsive liar.

[armywife199]

And before Bush was in office how many times did Clinton let Osama walk away because he was a weakling..quivering ....