From Other Sites on the Line: 2 Sep 08

British Troops Kill 200 Taliban In Afghan Dam Operation

Cross posted from Holger Awakens

Holy shit! The British were responsible for helping get a huge turbine delivered to an Afghan dam project - Americans and Canadians oversaw the huge convoy the first 50 miles of the journey and 3,000 Brit troops carried the load the second 50 miles and in that last 50 miles, the Taliban threw all they had at the Brits. The result? Turbine delivered. 200 Taliban smoked.

Here's some of the details from The Telegraph:
British commanders estimate that more than 200 Taliban were killed as they tried to prevent the convoy of 100 vehicles from getting the machinery to Kajaki hydroelectric dam where it will provide a significant increase in energy for up to two million Afghans.While medics had prepared for casualties, commanders said there was only one wounded among the British, American, Canadian and Australian troops who took part in the operation - a British soldier was crushed when a trailer collapsed on him."As a template for the rest of this country, it's shown that when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question," said Lt Col James Learmont of 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery.

This is just another example of how the Taliban want to return Afghanistan back to the dark ages - they certainly don't want this dam operational and providing electricity to Afghanistan, the same way they shut down schools when they held power for those years before the Coalition tossed their asses out of power.This whole mission was a huge success thanks to the great efforts of not only the British troops but of the Americans and Canadians.

British soldiers kill 200 Taliban in Afghan dam operation

British commanders estimate that more than 200 Taliban were killed as they tried to prevent the convoy of 100 vehicles from getting the machinery to Kajaki hydroelectric dam where it will provide a significant increase in energy for up to two million Afghans.The operation has been described as the biggest of its kind since the Second World War.For the last five days the force has fought through the heart of Taliban territory to push through the 220 tonne turbine and other equipment that included a 90 tonne crane to lift it into place.With a third turbine fixed at Kajaki it will mean that the extra electricity could double the irrigation output allowing farmers to plant two crops of wheat a year. With a dramatic rise in world wheat prices this could crucially mean that it becomes more profitable than producing opium which would deprive the Taliban of a major source of revenue.Escorted by attack helicopters, armoured vehicles and men of the Parachute Regiment, the trucks trundled into Kajaki.For the first 50 miles of its journey from the southern city of Kandahar the convoy was protected by American and Canadian troops. But for the second 50 mile leg through Taliban strongholds more than 3,000 British troops were needed to fight off the insurgents

.Lt Col Dave Wilson, of 23 Engineer Regiment, said the operation was the most significant "route clearance" operation since the Second World War with the sappers freeing the route of mines and improvised bombs."It was a huge achievement," said Lt Col Wilson. "It was carried out through some of the most heavily mined areas of Afghanistan."While medics had prepared for casualties, commanders said there was only one wounded among the British, American, Canadian and Australian troops who took part in the operation - a British soldier was crushed when a trailer collapsed on him."As a template for the rest of this country, it's shown that when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question," said Lt Col James Learmont of 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery.In order to win over villagers in some areas, British forces held meetings with locals to negotiate the convoy's passage, and paid $25,000 in compensation to one community for disruption.The Taliban had agreed to maintain a ceasefire in some areas but violated the deal, British commanders said.
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A note from Radarsite: Did I somehow miss this glorious story of Allied victory in the GWOT? Did I somehow just look at all the wrong newspapers and listen to all the wrong TV News Shows? Or perhaps was this "most significant 'route clearance' operation since the Second World War" just not newsworthy enough? Well, thanks to sharp and committed fellow bloggers like Holger Awakens this wonderful story will not go unheralded.

I still find it bizarre and incomprehensible to be living in an era when our own news media is reluctant to report on American, or America's allies victories in this deadly GWOT. To the antiwar left stories like these are unwelcome visitors to their house of lies. Their unrelenting mantra of the criminal foolhardiness of American intervention in the Middle East, the arrogant stupidity of Bush's War in Iraq, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan depends upon the daily reinforcement of this bleak defeatist premise. Stories of defeat and lost causes. Wounded Afghan children and weeping Afghan women. Body bags, if possible. The possibility -- no, the growing evidence that we might actually be winning this war is the very last thing they want to hear, and the very last thing they will be reporting.

If the nay-sayers predictions are proven wrong, then it invalidates everything they have stood for, worked for and voted for. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say 'everything they stood against, worked against and voted against'. The thought that we and our allies could actually make a difference, that we might actually win against these centuries-old entrenched forces of darkness, that we just might be able to bring these benighted peoples out of their darkness into the light of freedom and liberty and hope was, to them, the ultimate example of arrogant neocon hubris, and, as such, was doomed to fail from the start. This was Bush's Folly, Bush's Follies, a Republican misadventure which must be thwarted by any and all means.

Immediately following the defeat and occupation of Japan, when the decision was made to stay in Japan, to occupy that country and to turn it into a democracy, the historians and the intellectuals and the professional nay-sayers all came out in force. The idea that we could go into a country like Japan with its centuries-old tradition of feudalism and Emperor worship and change it into a democracy was not only foolish and absurd, it was the height of ignorant, arrogant American hubris, and was obviously doomed to fail miserably.

Within five short years, Japanese kids were playing baseball in Tokyo, and Japan was well on its way to becoming a democratic capitalist powerhouse. And the vociferous nay-sayers disappeared back into their ivory towers.

Yes, we are making a difference in the Middle East. Iraq is a free nation now. The murderers have either fled or been killed. And now, the infamous Taliban is being systematically destroyed. As are the forlorn and defeatist predictions of the nay-sayers on the left.

God bless our troops and our allies' troops. And if our leftist MSM refuses to report on these glorious victories, then we in this new media of ours will proudly step into the vacuum.

Thank you Holger Awakens.

PS: Please, don't anyone write in to remind me that the GWOT is far from over and that we have a long hard road ahead of us. I am well aware of this fact. But, we must be able to celebrate our victories and proudly honor our troops. And we must also remember that history not only teaches us about the tragic fall of great empires, but also about the happy birth of new democracies.