The Other Brown People

Gee, military power scales down presence and comes to regret it in Afghanistan.

Seems like we've only heard this story about a dozen times before 2001. Naturally, Bush went for the baker's dozen so he could "kick Saddam's ass all over the middle east".

Soldiers deployed in Helmand province five years on from the US-led invasion, and six months after the deployment of a large British force, have told The Independent that the sheer ferocity of the fighting in the Sangin valley, and privations faced by the troops, are far worse than generally known.

"We are flattening places we have already flattened, but the attacks have kept coming. We have killed them by the dozens, but more keep coming, either locally or from across the border," one said. "We have used B1 bombers, Harriers, F16s and Mirage 2000s. We have dropped 500lb, 1,000lb and even 2,000lb bombs. At one point our Apaches [helicopter gunships] ran out of missiles they have fired so many. Almost any movement on the ground gets ambushed. We need an entire battle group to move things. Yet they will not give us the helicopters we have been asking for.

Meanwhile...

NATO members have failed to respond to a call from military commanders for reinforcements to try to quell the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan, an alliance spokesman said.

"No formal offers were made at the table," James Appathurai told reporters Wednesday in Brussels, where the 26-nation group was meeting.