Ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan

[tocqueville]

by Sardar Ahmad 36 minutes ago

KABUL (AFP) - Ten French soldiers were killed in battles with the Taliban near the Afghan capital, a French presidency source said Tuesday, as troops thwarted a second attack on a key US military base in as many days.

Military officials in Kabul said the fierce clashes started with an attack Monday on an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol in Sarobi district, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the capital Kabul.

The French source, who requested anonymity, said the soldiers were killed following a "Taliban ambush".

....

The incident was the deadliest for the French army since a 1983 bombing in Lebanon in which 58 French parachutists were killed.

In Kabul, ISAF said only that soldiers were involved in a "significant incident with insurgents".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080819/wl_afp/afghanistanunrest_080819101749
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

This has been officially confirmed (10 dead, 21 wounded) . Sarkozy on its way to Afghanistan.

Honor to the dead, all our thoughts for the families

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Wow - that's awful

and close to Kabul too - nearly all of Afghanistan is a seriosu combat zone now.

[Smith_3]

2. And France is still in Afghanistan. Somebody needs to apologize big time for

the Freedom Fries...

[texasleo]

3. I agree.

[NNN0LHI]

4. Are they still looking for bin Laden hiding in his secret mountain fortress?

What is their mission there? What did they die for?

Anyone know?

Don

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Le Rue Sans Joie

...

[Solly Mack]

6. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Too many have died and for what?

For what?

[tocqueville]

7. we die for freedom and democracy is my answer

to those who asked the question...

Fighting to destroy a resurgent autocratic fundie cult, threatening our values is worth fighting for.
That's why we are in Afghanistan nothing else, besides respecting our mutual obligations within NATO.

[JohnyCanuck]

9. John Pilger disagrees.

The Good War is a Bad War

SNIP

The truth about the “good war” is to be found in compelling evidence that the 2001 invasion, widely supported in the west as a justifiable response to the 11 September attacks, was actually planned two months prior to 9/11 and that the most pressing problem for Washington was not the Taliban’s links with Osama Bin Laden, but the prospect of the Taliban mullahs losing control of Afghanistan to less reliable mujahedin factions, led by warlords who had been funded and armed by the CIA to fight America’s proxy war against the Soviet occupiers in the 1980s. Known as the Northern Alliance, these mujahedin had been largely a creation of Washington, which believed the “jihadi card” could be used to bring down the Soviet Union. The Taliban were a product of this and, during the Clinton years, they were admired for their “discipline”. Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “ are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history”.

The “moment in history” was a secret memorandum of understanding the mullahs had signed with the Clinton administration on the pipeline deal. However, by the late 1990s, the Northern Alliance had encroached further and further on territory controlled by the Taliban, whom, as a result, were deemed in Washington to lack the “stability” required of such an important client. It was the consistency of this client relationship that had been a prerequisite of US support, regardless of the Taliban’s aversion to human rights. (Asked about this, a state department briefer had predicted that “the Taliban will develop like the Saudis did”, with a pro-American economy, no democracy and “lots of sharia law”, which meant the legalised persecution of women. “We can live with that,” he said.)

By early 2001, convinced it was the presence of Osama Bin Laden that was souring their relationship with Washington, the Taliban tried to get rid of him. Under a deal negotiated by the leaders of Pakistan’s two Islamic parties, Bin Laden was to be held under house arrest in Peshawar. A tribunal of clerics would then hear evidence against him and decide whether to try him or hand him over to the Americans. Whether or not this would have happened, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf vetoed the plan. According to the then Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, a senior US diplomat told him on 21 July 2001 that it had been decided to dispense with the Taliban “under a carpet of bombs”.

Acclaimed as the first “victory” in the “war on terror”, the attack on Afghanistan in October 2001 and its ripple effect caused the deaths of thousands of civilians who, even more than Iraqis, remain invisible to western eyes. The family of Gulam Rasul is typical. It was 7.45am on 21 October. The headmaster of a school in the town of Khair Khana, Rasul had just finished eating breakfast with his family and had walked outside to chat to a neighbour. Inside the house were his wife, Shiekra, his four sons, aged three to ten, his brother and his wife, his sister and her husband. He looked up to see an aircraft weaving in the sky, then his house exploded in a fireball behind him. Nine people died in this attack by a US F-16 dropping a 500lb bomb. The only survivor was his nine-year-old son, Ahmad Bilal. “Most of the people killed in this war are not Taliban; they are innocents,” Gulam Rasul told me. “Was the killing of my family a mistake? No, it was not. They fly their planes and look down on us, the mere Afghan people, who have no planes, and they bomb us for our birthright, and with all contempt.”

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=470

[tocqueville]

10. John Pilger can go and fuck himself

In its fight against terrorism, France has just been struck severely," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement.

But he added, "My determination remains intact. France is resolved to pursue the fight against terrorism, for democracy and liberty. The cause is just, it is the honor of France and its armies to defend it."

[tocqueville]

11. 20 US soldiers might have been killed too (not verified)

The French soldiers were killed in a major battle that erupted when Taliban insurgents ambushed their reconnaissance patrol from three sides in the Sarobi district of Kabul province about 60 km (40 miles) east of Kabul on Monday, officials said.

Significant air support was used to extract the units from an extremely violent ambush, the French presidency said.

France has 1,670 troops with NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, after Sarkozy sent an extra 700 soldiers this year in response to a U.S. call for its NATO allies to send more forces to check a surge in violence.

Only 12 French troops had previously died in Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for refusing to give up al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks.

The 10 dead and 21 wounded soldiers were from the 8th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment and the Regiment de marche du Tchad, a mechanized marine unit.

The Afghan Defence Ministry said 27 insurgents have been killed or wounded in the fighting and at least two Afghan soldiers have been wounded.

The Taliban said on its Web site that 20 U.S. soldiers had been killed in the fighting, which they said erupted after militants ambushed a convoy of Afghan and foreign forces late on Monday. That claim could not be immediately verified.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080819/wl_nm/afghan_violence_dc_14

[NNN0LHI]

12. Are you suggesting the thugs we have Blackwater keeping alive is a true democracy?

Because if that is your definition of a democracy we are all in deep shit.

Save the platitudes for the RNC convention.

Don

[bushmeister0]

8. A certain Russian must be lauging into his ushanka about now.