All together now! This is how we win the war, win the war, win the war....

Posted By Deebow

82nd Airborne Troopers doing it right in my former AO.  This place was crawling with Taliban.  I spent a week with my Afghan soldiers and the 2-87 Infantry up there and we hit a couple good sized caches and captured an HVT by the end of it all, and given the ebb and flow of fighters in the area, at least when I was there, this was bound to happen at some point. This is from the WSJ.

ZEROK, Afghanistan -- The villagers handed out red roses. The elders lined up to welcome guests to their ancient tradition, the shura. And John Gibson, a U.S. Army captain with sunburned cheeks, warmly embraced Haji Taday, a tribal leader with a black Abe Lincoln beard.But what looked like a reunion with an old friend last month was really a political ambush of a bitter enemy.  "He takes us for fools," Capt. Gibson, smiling slightly, said minutes after hugging Mr. Taday. "We just got enough evidence to move against him."  In Afghanistan's insurgency, politics is warfare by other means. U.S. officers knew that if they wanted to take down Mr. Taday -- both a major figure in the local Taliban and chief of Zerok's council of elders -- they would have to avoid cultural missteps that could hand propaganda victories to their enemies.

Small background here; the village of Zerok is a tiny community nestled in the mountains that is surrounded by mountains and rivers with only one real road into and out of it.  It is about 3 miles from another village called Nakah that is even more remote.  We used to visit this place often, but without a permanent presence (established with a Combat Outpost just before I left), not much could be done to really drive out the insurgent presence.  This picture is looking back toward the FOB we came from 2 hours ago and we still have a couple miles to go.  The road in the picture is the aforementioned single route into the village.

This road is also the place where I found myself standing on my first IED.  That slightly harrowing story can be found here. 

Since I don't want to ruin the punch-line for why I chose the title I did, check the entire article here and you will have yourself a little chuckle too.

Knowing each one of the Afghans mentioned in the story, I sure did laugh....

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All together now! This is how we win the war, win the war, win the war....

82nd Airborne Troopers doing it right in my former AO.  This place was crawling with Taliban.  I spent a week with my Afghan soldiers and the 2-87 Infantry up there and we hit a couple good sized caches and captured an HVT by the end of it all, and given the ebb and flow of fighters in the area, at least when I was there, this was bound to happen at some point. This is from the WSJ.

ZEROK, Afghanistan -- The villagers handed out red roses. The elders lined up to welcome guests to their ancient tradition, the shura. And John Gibson, a U.S. Army captain with sunburned cheeks, warmly embraced Haji Taday, a tribal leader with a black Abe Lincoln beard.But what looked like a reunion with an old friend last month was really a political ambush of a bitter enemy.  "He takes us for fools," Capt. Gibson, smiling slightly, said minutes after hugging Mr. Taday. "We just got enough evidence to move against him."  In Afghanistan's insurgency, politics is warfare by other means. U.S. officers knew that if they wanted to take down Mr. Taday -- both a major figure in the local Taliban and chief of Zerok's council of elders -- they would have to avoid cultural missteps that could hand propaganda victories to their enemies.

Small background here; the village of Zerok is a tiny community nestled in the mountains that is surrounded by mountains and rivers with only one real road into and out of it.  It is about 3 miles from another village called Nakah that is even more remote.  We used to visit this place often, but without a permanent presence (established with a Combat Outpost just before I left), not much could be done to really drive out the insurgent presence.  This picture is looking back toward the FOB we came from 2 hours ago and we still have a couple miles to go.  The road in the picture is the aforementioned single route into the village.

This road is also the place where I found myself standing on my first IED.  That slightly harrowing story can be found here. 

Since I don't want to ruin the punch-line for why I chose the title I did, check the entire article here and you will have yourself a little chuckle too.

Knowing each one of the Afghans mentioned in the story, I sure did laugh....

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