Here's part of the price:
Sniper rounds snapped off rocks and sizzled overhead. Explosions of recoilless rifle rounds echoed through the valley, while bullets inched closer to the rock wall behind which I crouched with a handful U.S. and Afghan officers.
Lt. Fabayo and several other soldiers later said they'd seen women and children in the village shuttling ammunition to fighters positioned in windows and roofs. Across the valley and from their ridgeline outposts, the Afghans and Americans fired back.
At 5:50 a.m. , Army Capt. Will Swenson , of Seattle, WA , the trainer of the Afghan Border Police unit in Shakani, began calling for air support or artillery fire from a unit of the Army's 10th Mountain Division . The responses came back: No helicopters were available.
"This is unbelievable. We have a platoon (of Afghan army) out there and we've got no Hotel Echo ," Swenson shouted above the din of gunfire, using the military acronym for high explosive artillery shells. "We're pinned down."
Four of our Marines died there. Note how the enemy "civilians"--even children--supported the enemy. Yet they were off limits as targets and shielded the shooters.
Still, short-term losses like this are necessary in a counter-insurgency. We aim to win the war--not all of the battles. We need leaders and troops well trained and disciplined enough to understand the trade off we need to make to win the war.
This doesn't mean that we can't learn from losses like this to adjust our rules for using firepower or adapt our tactics to counter the enemy's exploitation of our rules of engagement.
But it is frustrating. And deadly for our troops. I can only hope that in the long run their sacrifice saves others who won't be shot at by an Afghan who isn't made angry by too much firepower.
