U.S. TROOPS HELD CAPTIVE BY TALIBAN

16 U.S. SPECIAL FORCES KILLED ATTEMPTING RESCUE

Team of U.S. GIs Missing in Afghanistan
By DANIEL COONEY-FRIDAY JULY 1, 2005

(AP) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A small team of U.S. soldiers was missing Friday in the same mountains in eastern Afghanistan where a special forces helicopter was shot down earlier this week, and U.S. forces are using "every available asset" to find them, a U.S. military spokesman said.

The MH-47 Chinook helicopter - with 16 people on board who all died in the crash - had gone into the mountains Tuesday to extract the soldiers who are now missing. The team on the ground has been unaccounted for since the chopper was downed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said.

Only eight months ago, Afghan and U.S. officials were hailing a relatively peaceful presidential election as a sign that the Taliban rebellion was finished.

But remnants of the former regime have stepped up attacks, and there are disturbing signs that foreign fighters - including some linked to al-Qaida - might be making a new push to sow an Iraq-style insurgency.

Afghan officials say the fighters have used the porous border with Pakistan to enter the country, and have called on the Pakistani government do more to stop them.

The loss of the helicopter follows three months of unprecedented fighting that has killed about 465 suspected insurgents, 43 Afghan police and soldiers, 125 civilians, and 45 U.S. troops, including the 16 killed in Tuesday's crash.

The dead in this week's crash comprised seven soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Hunter Army Airfield, Ga., one from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Fort Campbell, Ky., and eight Navy SEALs assigned to units in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego, the U.S. military said in a statement.



I thought the Taliban had been defeated? They certainly should have been. If we hadn't diverted our troops to the mistake in Iraq, we would have completely defeated the Taliban and all other allies of al-Qaeda by now. Think of the outrageous cost of that diversion into Iraq and how it's prevented us from finishing the job against those who REALLY had something to do with 9/11.

53% say 'Iraq was a mistake' in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released today. Only 20% of us said it was a 'mistake' from the beginning. It would have been nice if that additional 33% wouldn't have acted like the sheep they are-we could have completed the job in Afghanistan by now.