The Afghan People Will Win - Part 19

I am afraid that report is not a radio log, it is a SIGACT report.

Radio logs are completely different. 

I would read this article.

Operation Medusa: The Battle For Panjwai

Frmrsldr, I'm no ardent reader of the Legion mag, but I read all three attempts to describe Op Medusa, because I've been upset over Op Medusa as a missed learning op for Canadians since 06.  My take on the Legion stories was of glory seeking brigs gen ordering a Col Lavoie to take his group into an area that he felt needed better study and rec first, which it sure did, and had he been taken seriously a lot of lives would have been saved.  By the description of wild shooting, sounds like the main body of the ambush was desperate locals.  Instead, Fraser and (I think implied) Gauthier, got to fart into their wingchairs and bellow to get on with it.

So whether or not yet another fighter jet bunch got it wrong, it's an ugly story that got so much uglier. 

Of course, breakfast time the next day was definitely a hail of US DU popcans.  Three dozen people suddenly on the ground, as if dead or dying, blood everywhere.  After the day before, some people have a lot to say. 

Webgear, you sound as if you know some of these people, and maybe Lavoie.  We all need to hear them.

And after that, Op Medusa (funny name considering the propaganda about security and dignity of women) was a rampage of slaughter and destruction, led by Canadian brass.  Swagger swagger, biggest go since Korea.

Memory nudge:  other big event, Sept 2, was the British spyplane with 14 aboard (?) killing everyone when it burst into flames and crashed.  Informed courage, the retrieval of bodies etc, possibly extra order motivated by getting the spy gear too.

So Pamela Constable may not be RAWA's fav reporter, but this is what she posted in late November 06, not embedded and stoned on armpits, but on the spot.

Now almost no one dares to drive on the road. NATO forces declared victory here in late September, claiming to have killed about 1,500 insurgents in a campaign named Operation Medusa.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/26/AR2006112600960.html?nav=emailpage

Op Medusa: Sept 3-17 '06. As soon as "victory" had been declared, an old man with a box on the back of his bicycle rode into a group of Canadian soldiers, reported as handing out candies to children, though locals said no children were present. Remember that? The old man blew himself up and killed four Canadians, wounded others.

 If true, 1500 people dead. 80,000 displaced, coming back if ever to rubble.

CBC "news": Generals braying on about raisin drying towers as fortresses with evil slits for the Taliban to shoot through. Generals on about tunnels with holes for the Taliban to pop up and shoot through (karezes). A total disgrace.

 End result? Most Canadians died along the same stretch of road, less than 20 miles, and long the new fabulously wide route summit pitched to us as a great way for locals to get their vegetables to market.

Webgear wrote:

Frmrsldr

For your information I am very familiar with the sites you have linked and have been reading them for years.

Don't read too much into this, but that explains a lot of things.

I did get the date wrong though, it was Sept 2-17 06, at least as announced.

Ah, yes. Operation Medusa. That unbridled murder fest. Afghanistan's "Falujah". Where there was no restraint to the amount of rockets, missiles, bombs, bullets and artillery shells that were unleashed.

In an article for the Globe and Mail, Graeme Smith describes the use of white phosphorus as spec.(culative) fire on groves of marijuana. He quotes then Gen. Rick Hillier, "We used white phosphorus on a grove of marijuana where the Taliban was hiding. The marijuana was too wet and did not burn. We called off the use of white phosphorus when some of our guys became sick."

Just lovely isn't it? We inflict white phosphorus casualties on our own troops. No mention was made of how many (if any) insurgents were killed or injured from this white phosphorus attack.