Up Close and Personal: Portrait of an Afghan Firefight
Chuck Spinney in CounterPunch
Landay documents only a single firefight, but his description of it suggests some troubling questions that put the entire efficacy of our military's new counter-guerrilla strategy into sharper relief.
Read rest of Spinney commentary at CounterPunch
GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition. . . . . . .”Whatever we do always leaks,” said Marine Lt. Ademola Fabayo, 28, a New Yorker who was born in Nigeria and is the operations officer for the trainers from the 3rd Marine Division. “You can't trust even some of their soldiers or officers.” . . . . . .I wasn't as terrified as I was angry: angry at the absence of air support, angry that there was no artillery fire, angry that Williams' interpreter had been killed, angry at the realization that the operation had obviously been betrayed and angry at myself for not bolting with the others.
