{"id":924,"date":"2002-03-04T00:58:00","date_gmt":"2002-03-04T04:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=924"},"modified":"2002-03-04T00:58:00","modified_gmt":"2002-03-04T04:58:00","slug":"afghanistan-heating-up-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2002\/03\/04\/00\/58\/afghanistan-heating-up-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan Heating Up Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Further to this<\/a>, I read today that US-backed Government forces in <\/a>Afghanistan retreated under fire<\/a>, even when backed up with an air assault using the most horrific of the new thermobaric mass suffocation<\/a> crushing
\nv
\nacuum bombs, the (BLU)-118\/B<\/a>. I believe that these bombs contravene the US’s supposed renunciation of chemical-based weapons of war. A huge part of their effect stems from, according to a 1993 US Defence Intelligence Agency<\/a> report, the fact that even if the cloud fa
\ni
\nls to detonate properly, “victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated FAE should prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as most chemical agents<\/b>1<\/a><\/sup>.” It’s a bit rich to condemn Saddam Hussein for using chemical weapons while gloating over your own toxic weapons. Anyway…<\/p>\n

The biggest U.S.-led ground offensive of the five-month Afghan war was repulsed on Saturday, forcing government troops and U.S. advisers to withdraw … some of the U.S. advisers were forced to abandon two four-wheel drive vehicles on Saturday and <\/a>flee for their lives. Some of them were rescued from the mountain fighting at heights of at le
\na
\nst 8,250 feet by U.S. helicopt
\ners t
\nhat braved intense fire.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

And now the Afghanis<\/a> are <\/a>downing <\/a>US choppers<\/a>, causing fatalities. This i
\ns getting messy, just as it did for the Russians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, war-crazed Republicans want <\/a>to lynch Daschle<\/a> for suggesting that Congress exercise its constitutional duty to monitor any war plans of the Executive
\n. It’s all spin a<\/a>nd bluster<\/a> by both sides. Of course, everything is <\/a>under control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before Tet<\/a>, in 1968, Vietnam seemed almost placid and US leaders willfully imagined they were over the worst…<\/p>\n

1. 8. Defense Intelligence Agency, “Fuel-Air and Enhanced-Blast Explosive Technology–Foreign,” April 1993. Obtained by Human Rights Watch unde
\nr the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Further to this, I read today that US-backed Government forces in Afghanistan retreated under fire, even when backed up with an air assault using the most horrific of the new thermobaric mass suffocation crushing...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}