I’ve read several books on the Soviet – Afghan war, remember “The Bear Trap” especially well, which Bush or Cheney had read it.

AND, in addition to that, I had no idea a patrolling unit tasked with attacking traffic on a main road would be so poorly armed in the field, so poorly led in the field, so poorly supported, with such poor leadership in the rear. Their C3I was more of a hazard to them than an asset.

Exactly how those IEDs are placed, who does it, how they are detonated, how strong the follow-up attacks may be and where and how they leave afterward is essential knowledge for those on the scene. I found it fascinating.

I’m familiar with a local sneaking out and placing a mine, or one person observing with a remote device. Maybe follow-up with a platoon-sized force. But not with this disorganized and loose arrangement.

It was also interesting to learn how the insurgents could move safely through the population, and how NATO forces couldn’t move without being tracked by the enemy. That means the US is fighting the entire population, and is not seen as a liberator.

I guess cellphones are used because there can be no real time interception and processing of the signals.

I suspect these guys may have been misfits had they been in Iraq, a country which has had a national army and fought wars as a nation. They would have a more military tradition, training and discipline. Afghanistan has no national identity, even, at least internally. It has always been tribal, with marginal training. The brief clips of folks clambering out of culverts right in front of the camera are, I think, propaganda intended to scare Westerners. These folks are physically tough already, used to the area, and their training is more along the lines of some familiarization with weapons, a very little on communications and small unit tactics

As far as beheading the journalist, I think that is common. Not the beheading, but killing those with information. Taking prisoners requires quite an infrastructure, and anyone on any side travelling fast, small and vulnerable simply cannot do it. That’s one reason some people don’t talk about their military experiences – there’s little of which to be proud. If anything.

As far as killing infidels is concerned, it looks to me that is an issue, with the additional qualifications that it’s killing infidels who are over in my country trying to take away my land and way of life.

I think the entire issue isn’t that the US is a land of infidels but that it’s a land of infidels over here.

Overall I found the documentary quite illuminating, and it answered a lot of questions I had. And it does not seem to have had much, if any, appeal to others. I’m very surprised.

With the amount of damage these guys do to our troops with IDE’s, this one small group may have just been made up of misfits.

They did manage to use rocket launchers and small arms to kill Afghan forces on the road.

One thing I don’t understand is the fact they use cellphones to communicate. You’d think our side would easily pick up and locate the source as well as listen.

I was glad the journalist was an Afghan because if he was American journalist or from an allied country I’d have a hard time with that.

The new commander wanted him to kill one of the enemies to prove his allegiance to the jihadists. They could not accept he could be Muslim and neutral.

When he declined they were going to behead him. Guess there’s no place to imprison the enemy and more importantly
no desire to do so. Their only desire and code of conduct is to kill the infidels.