The article starts ominously enough:
Insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn assault Wednesday against the giant U.S.-run Bagram Air Field, killing an American contractor and wounding nine service members in the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and around the capital in as many days.
At least 10 insurgents were killed as Taliban suicide bombers attempted to breach the defenses of the base north of Kabul, while others fired rockets and grenades inside, according to a statement issued by U.S. forces.
The attack started around 3 a.m. Blasts and gunfire only subsided around midday, said Master Sgt. Tom Clementson, a spokesman for U.S. forces. No insurgents managed to get into the base and none were able to detonate their suicide vests, the statement said.
The enemy failed to penetrate our defenses. You'd think a "brazen" attack could do that at least, even for a moment, to give some justification for that description.
But further down we find:
An Afghan provincial police commander, Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhail, said the attack began when U.S. guards spotted would-be attackers in a car just outside the Bagram base. The Americans opened fire, triggering a gunbattle in which at least one militant triggered his suicide vest. Running gunbattles broke out as U.S. troops hunted down the other attackers.
Hmm. It doesn't sound nearly as brazen with this information. It seems like the Taliban gathered outside our base in order to attack us, we discovered them before the enemy could strike, and then we attacked them. "Running gunbattles" sure sounds like we chased them off, given that our base perimeter was not penetrated during the fight that didn't stop until midday--9 hours after the fight started, give or take an hour. Indeed, the article says we "hunted down" the would-be attackers.
Brazen? Stupid, sounds more like it. The enemy got their butts handed to them, if I'm reading the article correctly.
Man, what could we do with press coverage that lifted up our efforts no matter how epic the fail?
UPDATE: Revisions to the narrative: the enemy seems to have initiated the attack, after all. They may also have worn (older?) US-style uniforms. But we did pursue the attackers--and defeat them.
It usually takes a while to get the full story with all the details more or less accurate.
