30 US Troops killed by Taliban in single attack.

[Dr Snakeman]

>implying that it's the dead soldier's fault they were deployed to Afghanistan

It IS their fault that they were deployed to Afghanistan.

They were not forced to go, they signed a contract that explicitly said they could be called to serve in areas of armed conflict.

Yeah, America should be ashamed of itself for going after the people who murdered thousands of civilians...

America should be ashamed for using their OFFICIAL military force to escalate unrest in the middle east and kill THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS. America should be ashamed for DROPPING BOMBS on CIVILIANS THAT HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH TERRORISTS.

The American Military is no better than the extremists they fight.

Um... no, we don't do that. At all. What America are you talking about? There have been some accidental civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan, but they are always just that: accidental. In the few cases that soldiers have gone rogue and killed innocents for fun, they are severely punished. And as for the bomb thing... American troops are routinely denied air support for fear of harming the local populace.

And if you honestly think that our military is no better than the Taliban, then you are frighteningly misinformed. Tell you what: go look up the actions of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Learn about what they routinely do, and what they stand for, and then come back and tell me with a straight face that they are the good guys.

 

[phelan511]

It was the same unit that got bin Laden, but it wasn't the same men or so we say. DEVGRU is a pretty big unit. Seems to me that having a bunch of DEVGRU operators in one heli means that whoever they were going after must have been one hell of a HVT. Thoughts and prayers go to the killed and their families.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Thirty US troops, said to be mostly special forces, have been killed, reportedly when a Taliban rocket downed their helicopter.

This is the largest single loss of life in the Afghan conflict.

Here's the official BBC link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14430735

So, pretty tragic, and what's more, this is the same unit from the group that took down Osama Bin Laden.

What's your take?

[HEADING=2]EDIT:[/HEADING] Since people have just seemed to jump the gun here, this particualr unit were the ones that took down Bin Laden!
Is this just coincidence!?

Wait, was they involve with killing him or was it somebody else that was on the same team but did NOT kill Bin laden.

 

[Shock and Awe]

That's the bloody truth of war folks, people die.

Yeah, but usually not in this large a number.

Actually, that's sort of depending on your perspective. When looking more than two months back it's more akin to "usually they don't die in these small numbers".

Well for the US military incidents this large haven't happened regularly since Vietnam.

US soldiers don't have a monopoly on dying in a war you know. And I hope you're not suggesting that it only matters when US soldiers die.

Not at all, Im just saying thats why this is such a bid deal for Americans, this kind of loss of life in single incidents has almost been unheard of since Vietnam. Thats why the incident in Mogadishu was such a bid deal 20 years ago, even then Americans have gotten used to the lack of fatalities, especially out special operations troops.

 

[natster43]

Sucks for the families of the soldiers. Sadly this is truth of war, people dying. As to the whole same unit thing, I doubt it was anything more than coincidence.

 

[phelan511]

Yeah, America should be ashamed of itself for going after the people who murdered thousands of civilians...

America should be ashamed for using their OFFICIAL military force to escalate unrest in the middle east and kill THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS. America should be ashamed for DROPPING BOMBS on CIVILIANS THAT HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH TERRORISTS.

The American Military is no better than the extremists they fight.

Um. Not sure who you're thinking about but we in the U.S. Military do not intentionally target civilians. We attack combatants. Do civilians sometimes die? Sadly yes. Is there an investigation each time U.S. ordinance was involved in civilian casualties? Yes. Are there changes in procedure to prevent civilians from getting killed? Yes. But what makes us better? We provide aid to those we accidentally injure, we pay the families as an apology if they are killed. Whats the difference between the US military and the Taliban or the Mahdi Army or Al-Qaeda? The insurgents don't care who they hit. And they don't hit just US targets. They attack Iraqi civilians, they attack Afghan civilians. On purpose. Placing IEDs in schools, using car bombs on hospitals, shooting at innocent people that were thought to have helped the Coalition. And then when they do attack civilians and civilians die? They're considered infidels or collaborators and thus they deserved to die. Don't you dare impugn the honor of the men and women serving not just the US, or NATO, by lumping them in the same group as these monsters.

 

[Zeema]

So guys why are we there again?

 

[SoulSalmon]

What's your take?

This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been there in the first place.

The US puts it's nose in everyone's business and then cries foul when they get punched in the face.

Yup, and this is why I don't care anymore, the US is either going "Fuck yeah we killed a bunch of those evil bastards" or "Boo hoo they fought back" -.-

It's just the general American attitude to war in general really... sure one could argue the whole 'vocal minority' thing but the minority in this case has to be like 49% >.<
The "We should be celebrating Japans nuclear incident because of Pearl Harbour" thing comes to mind pretty quickly...

Edit: Also; lol at the people screaming "Our military are HEROES! They can do no wrong! How DARE you compare them to those EVIL monsters!" xD

 

[Kachiporra]

woaw tha taliban guy sure got lucky

 

[Panda Mania]

That's one hell of a coincidence.

But I don't know anything about the U.S. military's or the Taliban's plans, so I won't say anything more.

It all kinda reminds me of the French attempting to beat the Vietminh...Very, very deeficult....

 

[omega 616]

So now the death total is like 500 American/English troops dead compared to 10,000 odd Taliban forces ...

I know there not accurate numbers but I still bet it's more of a massacre than a war.

I'm not exactly sad or happy for those who have died but they chose to join the army, they knew what could happen, they accepted the risk and went over. I think of it like getting drunk, you can't show that much sympathy to a person who knew the risks but still took them.

 

[aashell13]

[HEADING=2]EDIT:[/HEADING] Since people have just seemed to jump the gun here, this particualr unit were the ones that took down Bin Laden!
Is this just coincidence!?

Yes, it's just a coincidence. The exact strength of SEAL teams is classified, but there are several hundred personnel in each, so it's no surprise that some of the SEALS in Afghanistan came from the same unit as the team for the osama raid.

Also, it's not like they were killed in a stand-up firefight. Somebody just got off an (un-)lucky shot with an RPG.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Consider previous wars like Vietnam or WW2.The battle of Stalingrad in aprticular where over 2.000.000 soldiers died.

War has been toned down so much that even a number such as 30 soldiers of your own faction dying seems like much.

It really comes down to that war has become pretty much all guerrilla warfare and we press this button and enemies we can't see, die.

In the old wars, it was easy to lose thousands of men practically each day, because we fought in giant relatively open battles where people are running and gunning at each other, or sitting in foxholes not far from each other and moving their heads up and down exchanging fire.

These days, unless it is some kind of raid, our troops sit around occupying something until enemies come to fight, then we runaway while firing and hope they leave. There is not much head-on combat, not on the scale of what it use to be.

With such tactical "safe(though still very dangerous)" combat, we see maybe a death or two every couple of weeks. So these days, 30 getting killed at once is horrible, while back in day, only 30 getting killed in a day was a great day compared to the rest.

 

[puffy786]

I'm more on the conspiracy side on this one. I really doubt that specifically the soldiers that killed Osama had been a few in the small amount of people killed in helicopter crashes.

 

[Dragonclaw]

I think it's amazing how times have changed...look how many died in any WW2 battle and we're shocked at a loss of 30...Personally I think we should have learned from the Soviets that Afganistan is pretty much an unwinnable quagmire...especially when there's no real objective other than "get rid of random people shooting at us"

 

[ResonanceSD]

I think it's amazing how times have changed...look how many died in any WW2 battle and we're shocked at a loss of 30...Personally I think we should have learned from the Soviets that Afganistan is pretty much an unwinnable quagmire...especially when there's no real objective other than "get rid of random people shooting at us"

The vietnam war style of reporting changed the way that the world views troop losses. Anyone knows that.

 

[Kopikatsu]

It's war, people die. Still, the Coalition will kill 100 Taliban within a week for revenge. Bastards. Condolences to those affected by the incident; nobody should have loved ones taken from them.

Not sure if anyone responded to this, but uh...hypocritical much?

'30 guys died? That's awful. I condolences to their families, it must be rough losing someone you love. BUT AT LEAST WE'RE GOING TO KILL HUNDREDS OF THE OTHER GUYS. THEY'RE JUST FACELESS MONSTERS WITH NO FAMILY, WIVES, OR KIDS, AMIRIGHT?'

There's no right or wrong to war. There's just your side and the other side.

I think it's amazing how times have changed...look how many died in any WW2 battle and we're shocked at a loss of 30...Personally I think we should have learned from the Soviets that Afganistan is pretty much an unwinnable quagmire...especially when there's no real objective other than "get rid of random people shooting at us"

It's called the Monkeysphere. The smaller the number, the more 'tragic' it is. Five million people die? Statistic. Five people die? Tragedy.

 

[BoogieManFL]

They're bound to get a lucky shot off from time to time..

 

[SemiHumanTarget]

My question is: Why were they cramming 30 frikkin' guys in one helicopter? I'm proud of our military and the guys on the ground out there have some serious balls, but time and time again the US military's command structure has failed the people serving big time.

I highly suggest the book "Black Hearts" by Jim Frederick for numerous examples of serious command fuckups.

 

[Kargathia]

That's the bloody truth of war folks, people die.

Yeah, but usually not in this large a number.

Actually, that's sort of depending on your perspective. When looking more than two months back it's more akin to "usually they don't die in these small numbers".

Well for the US military incidents this large haven't happened regularly since Vietnam.

US soldiers don't have a monopoly on dying in a war you know. And I hope you're not suggesting that it only matters when US soldiers die.

Not at all, Im just saying thats why this is such a bid deal for Americans, this kind of loss of life in single incidents has almost been unheard of since Vietnam. Thats why the incident in Mogadishu was such a bid deal 20 years ago, even then Americans have gotten used to the lack of fatalities, especially out special operations troops.

I'm not American, so I can't place any special importance on the fact that 24 US citizens died. I neither believe that this debate is about the impact of their deaths on US operations in Afghanistan.
I can only view this in the same light as any other incident involving human soldiers.

And I still maintain that if we consider 30 deaths a big blow then we've made a big step forwards from the times where battles meant thousands died on a single day, and nobody really gave a shit.

It's war, people die. Still, the Coalition will kill 100 Taliban within a week for revenge. Bastards. Condolences to those affected by the incident; nobody should have loved ones taken from them.

Not sure if anyone responded to this, but uh...hypocritical much?

'30 guys died? That's awful. I condolences to their families, it must be rough losing someone you love. BUT AT LEAST WE'RE GOING TO KILL HUNDREDS OF THE OTHER GUYS. THEY'RE JUST FACELESS MONSTERS WITH NO FAMILY, WIVES, OR KIDS, AMIRIGHT?'

There's no right or wrong to war. There's just your side and the other side.

I might be the one reading his post wrong, but I think you're missing out on a bit of sarcasm there.