13 of the 16 killed in Afghan. Helicopter Crash were US Soldiers

[doxieone]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB0WT2X87E.html

U.S. Military Says 13 of 16 Killed in Afghan Helicopter Crash Were American Soldiers, Three Civilians

By Stephen Graham Associated Press Writer
Published: Apr 7, 2005



KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The fiery crash of a military helicopter in bad weather was the deadliest incident for Americans in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the U.S. military said Thursday, identifying 13 of the 16 victims as American service personnel.

snip

[Jo March]

1. On NPR they were referred to as "service members"

which doesn't have the punch that the word "soldiers" does. The media is trying to make it sound like soldiers aren't still dying. A lot of the general public wouldn't know the difference.

:grr:

[NNN0LHI]

6. Dead soldiers are now dead "service members" and...

wounded soldiers who get shot in the face are now "hurt" soldiers.

And an economy that is in its last death throes is now a "robust" economy.

And in other news up is down, while black is white. Damn that liberal media.

Don

[Jo March]

7. I was extremely pissed off

As a veteran, it makes me mad when they do stupid shit like that.

Carl Castle from NPR is getting a nasty message from me.

[dArKeR]

11. We've being hearing "injured" as in "tennis injury" for amputations

since the beginning of this immoral war.

[saigon68]

12. Actually Don some were Mercenaries

Or in the NEWSPEAK---- "CONTRACTORS"

[NNN0LHI]

13. Well they kind of are contractors saigon68

Contractors of death. But they are still mercenaries.

Don

[ewagner]

2. CNN this mornign

said that most of the casualties were "American personnel".

Is there a new talking point memo being sent to the media?

Orwell rolls in his grave.....indeed.

[lebkuchen]

3. This is an army helicopter

out of Giebelstadt, Germany.

Somebody over at Stripes is already involved in glossing over the accident. This piece below is just a few minutes old, but notice it in the context of the front page of Stripes (second story down). Both articles are written by the same reporter.

http://www.estripes.com/index.asp


Training is paying off in Afghanistan, says Kamiya.

Three weeks after taking command of the majority of American forces in the country, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya says training undertaken in Germany before the deployment is paying off.

And he hinted at upcoming operations as the weather improves.

*************
Apparently, the training in Germany wasn't good enough for conditions in Afghanistan. We just lost 16-18 guys out of Germany.

If the General knew the weather was bad, then why was this chopper given the go-ahead to fly?

Find an article that will tell you where the chopper is from. It hasn't been reported yet. What a coincidence that Stripes trots out an article touting the training in Germany that is "paying off" for our army just before publishing the fact that all our dead were trained in Germany before deploying to Afghanistan.

Stripes is supposed to be reporting the truth, but it spends most of its time doing damage control for the Pentagon. The Bushies have a ringer on its staff, no question about it.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=28268

[spinbaby]

4. I don't think the weather was that bad

There was a story in yahoo yesterday with this quote:

"Sarjang said the weather was cloudy with strong winds, but had no explanation for why the aircraft came down in a flat, desert area."

This morning the same story has the quote changed to:

"Sarjang said that the weather was cloudy with strong winds and that witnesses reported one of the helicopter's two rotors looked damaged before it hit the ground. He said he saw no sign of enemy fire, and militants issued no immediate claim of responsibility ."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050406/ap_on_re_as/afghan_us_helicopter_crash

[lebkuchen]

5. So,

part of the damage control in the article is that the General "admits" the weather in Afghanistan needs to improve before the army can begin its offensive (I thought we'd already won in Afghanistan). Then why would the General send the chopper out on a "routine" mission in bad weather? He can't have it both ways and come out of this disaster unscathed. Or is this just another high ranking officer who's supposed to fall on his sword to cover up the deception?

Why do you think the Chinook crash?

[daleo]

8. Remember the plane crash a few months ago?

That was "bad weather" too. I suppose there will be continuing bad weather over the next several years. The Russians would have seen a lot of bad weather in Afghanistan too. They probably lost a lot of helicopters to "bad weather".

On edit - I am referring to the plane crash in Afghanistan, around Christmas I think.

[dArKeR]

9. When this first broke, the reports implied the location was remote

Just think of the millions of people who first read that. They got the news and moved on. Most probably wouldn't return to the story. So in their minds this was a remote accident.

Immediately with my distrust of all republicans, the repulican owned media, aWol the coward... I wondered if this was shot down but blamed on weather as they did in Vietnam and other incidents around the world.

Later, the Media Whores came with this was over a town. Remember how the Iraqi's crawled out in the sand storm and attacked our invading stalled force! It seems to me a mild sand storm could be great cover for a rebel to fire an RPG at this Chinook.

The only point is that it is immediately concluded this was an accident with-in minutes or hours without any type of onsite investigation. Interviewing locals to ask what they heard and saw. Are the American people this/that uneducated and unable to piece together their own simple basic thought/analysis process?

In American, what if there was a big highway crash with dozens of people killed and the police headquaters, with no one on the scene, releases an announcement that it was a drunk driver who caused it because it's usually a drunk driver who does these kinds of things and plus no one likes drunk drivers anyway.

[cliss]

10. Expect more of the same.

I have been watching the issue of helicopters and vehicles in Iraq for a while now. I was alarmed about 1 month ago, when I noticed that one helicopter after another crashed. I tried to figure out if they were shot at. Hard to tell, because the Pentagon is so secretive about its press releases.

However, there was an article on CounterPunch about corruption at General Dynamics (or maybe it was some other helicopter manufacturer).

Maybe other people have noticed that there is something amiss with our equipment over there. I was also surprised at how many jeeps, tanks, Bradleys, vans etc have fallen apart or have been blown up.

Here's an interesting quote from a former US military; Stan Goff:

"Aside from that sort of macro-analysis, one thing that stands out in my mind is how badly many of the operations went, and how important it is for the US military to spend huge sums of money on arms and high technology. Grenada and Somalia are examples. Real emblems of stupidity in planning and execution. That's why I tell people not to buy into the hype about US military invicibility. Person for person, and dollar for dollar, the US military is the most inefficient in the world".

[unhappycamper]

14. Is there a web site that keeps track of all crashes & malfunctions?

I would be very interested in seeing the mortality rates by equipment type over time.

[Moderator]

15. kick to combine

[brettdale]

16. 13 of 16 killed in Afghan crash were U.S. troops

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/afghan.crash/index.html

[Erika]

17. But we liberated them. You mean we are still at war?

Bush liberates, our kids die. Forever?

[0007]

18. How many U.S. soldiers were killed in Abu Ghraib last week?

I can't help but wonder if the death count was transfered to Afghanistan from the Iraqi prison to save embarassment and to keep the count low in Iraq.

You know the way Arthur Anderson & Ken Lay use to cook the books?

[deadparrot]

19. Afghanistan? We're still there?

Fancy that...:eyes:

[jukes]

20. uh huh

weather. yep, i believe that.

[SoCalDem]

21. Don't you mean the "coalition" helicopter crash

that was NOT shot down by the Taliban, but was attacked by "dust bunnies" in the sky??? (so stop saying that:P.):sarcasm:

[unhappycamper]

22. wonder when the gov is going to add 13 to 1545? late today maybe?

i'm guessing a late friday afternoon body count update.

[MetsMatt]

23. Stingers?

I can't help but wonder if this helicopter was brought down by missiles we sold the Afghans to fight the Soviets.