US, Afghan Troops Repel Attack from Taliban Invaders With 8:1 Advantage

What the media didn't bother reporting. They reported, accurately, that the attack resulted in the highest number of US casualties since a helicopter was downed and all 16 lives aboard lost.

They lost interest in the story when the US won, in an engagement Jeff Emmanuel calls an Alamo with a better ending.

International newswire activity spiked two mornings ago when word came from Afghanistan that nine U.S. troops had been killed in an attack on a remote coalition base.

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Had those mainstream reporters continued paying attention, chances are they would have noted something remarkable about Sunday's battle.

Three days before the attack, 45 U.S. paratroopers from the 173d Airborne, accompanied by 25 Afghan soldiers, made their way to Kunar province, a remote area in the northeastern Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, and established the beginnings of a small Combat Outpost (COP). Their movement into the area was noticed, and their tiny numbers and incomplete fortifications were quickly taken advantage of.

A combined force of up to 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters quickly moved into the nearby village of Wanat and prepared for their assault by evicting unallied residents and according to an anonymous senior Afghan defense ministry official, "us[ing] their houses to attack us."

Tribesmen in the town stayed behind "and helped the insurgents during the fight," General Mohammad Qasim Jangalbagh, the provincial police chief, told The Associated Press. Dug-in mortar firing positions were created, and with that indirect fire, as well as heavy machine gun and RPG fire from fixed positions, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters rushed the COP from three sides.

The attackers quickly breached the outer perimeter, and, under a withering barrage of supporting fire, a contingent of a mere 70 U.S. and Afghan soldiers combined were forced to fight for survival on their own outpost against the all-out assault from nearly 100 assailants.

The overwhelmingly outnumbered U.S. troops called in artillery, as well as fixed and rotary-wing air support, to help the repulse the attacking forces.

As recounted by the AP and other media outlets, nine U.S. paratroopers lost their lives -- a full fifth of the American contingent.

Further, fifteen U.S. and four Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the attack, meaning that, against an assault and support force of nearly 500 militant fighters, only 21 U.S. and 21 Afghan soldiers were able to fight at full strength -- and they succeeded not only in killing dozens of attackers, but in repelling the onslaught completely.

The media's narrative on war is as simple as it is simple-minded: If the enemy attacks at all, they win. If American troops are attacked at all, we lost.

The actual objective outcome of the engagement -- who really won? -- is irrelevant. The simple fact that the enemy is even able to mount an attack counts as a victory for them, and the fact that we have not been able to kill or neutralize every single enemy in the world shows that we have suffered, and will continuing suffering, catastrophic defeat.

The bar of success for our troops, in the media's telling, has been raised to an impossibly high level while the bar for success for our enemies has been reduced to simply being able to mount an attack at all.

posted by Ace at 08:46 PM

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