Ambush: Video Shows U.S. Troops Being Hunted, Killed (Afghanistan)

[sabra]

Source: ABC News Blotter

Dramatic new video shows how American soldiers in Afghanistan are being set up for deadly ambushes after trying to make peace with village elders in Taliban-controlled areas.

The effort to win the "hearts and minds" of village elders in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province in Afghanistan has proved to be a dangerous one for U.S. troops, with elders often suspected of tipping Taliban fighters to the soldiers' schedule and whereabouts.

The video, to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline," was shot by journalists embedded with the 2nd Platoon, Battle (B) Company of the 173rd Airborne. The journalists, including author Sebastian Junger, were on assignment for "Vanity Fair" and ABC News.

...

The new video shows the men of the 2nd Platoon of Battle Company twice walking into traps after leaving meetings with village elders, one called to discuss details of a U.S.-financed water pipe project.

"We went from being the hunters to the hunted," said photographer Tim Hetherington who was with the troops when they were attacked last month.

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/ambush-video-sh.html

[Baby Snooks]

1. Hmmmmm...

Didn't we help the Taliban "liberate" Afghanistan? And now we're "liberating" Afghanistan from the Taliban. How many times do you have to liberate a country before it's liberated?

"Charlie Wilson's War" should be hitting theatres around Christmas and is all about how we liberated Afghanistan the first time. Which should raise questions about how we are liberating Afghanistan the second time.

In case you don't catch it, or the film doesn't reveal it, Julia Roberts' character is a real live one. Who was married to the head of a natural gas company called Houston Natural Gas. Which of course became Enron after her husband died and Ken Lay took over.

[ixion]

2. "We went from being the hunters to the hunted,"

yeah, gee, it's so much better to be the hunter. :sarcasm:

Why are they surprised? They admit they were the hunters, now they're surprised they're being hunted?

Yeah, go figure. Humans defend themselves. Who could have foreseen? :eyes:

[rodeodance]

4. their interests and loyalites are not ours (as we like to deadly believe)

[leftchick]

3. otb

I have a major crush on Sebastian....



:lovya:


.back to your program.....

[tanyev]

5. Whoops. Time to send Laura out on another tour to tell us how wonderful things are in Afghanistan.

2005:

“Thanks to you, the Taliban is gone. Thanks to you more than eight million men and women in Afghanistan voted in the free elections. Thanks to you millions of little girls are going to school in this country-little girls who were denied the education just three years ago… These are big goals, and you’ve met every one of them with courage and honor,” she said.

She told the troops of her visit to Kabul University, and how encouraged she was that so many women were being trained to be teachers and educators, and said the women were “relishing” their newfound freedom.

“Each act of independence helps the roots of democracy grow stronger, and your work made all this possible.”

Mrs. Bush concluded her remarks by thanking the servicemembers again for everything they were doing in Afghanistan and for every hardship and sacrifice they endure for the cause of freedom.

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/mar2005/a033105wm2.html

[gratuitous]

6. Our guys are getting ambushed? Where's the love, man?

Gee, you scoop up a few hundred guys on little more than the say-so of some self-appointed warlord over the next ridge, lock 'em up in Guantanamo for a few years incommunicado, and some of the touchier people we've "liberated" are setting traps for us! Is that any way to treat an occupying army? I ask you?

[ohio2007]

7. Wheres the video link?

oh
it's a teaser to get ratings up for ABC news ......