One Sentence Can Tell A Story

Everything About the War in Afghanistan In a Single Sentence
by JOSHUA FOUST on 7/26/20Everything 11 · 5 COMMENTS

Army Master Sgt. Benjamin A. Stevenson, 36, was on his tenth tour of duty in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq when he was killed Thursday in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan.
Really, what else can you say, aside from how on earth can our leaders continue to insist that they’re winning in Afghanistan when their troops still get into vicious 2-day firefights in a province they’ve had soldiers in for nine years?
Or maybe it’s the insistence that special operations forces are killing Chechens in Paktika in groups of 80. There’s nothing else TO say, after reading that.

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }M Shannon July 26, 2011 at 11:42 pm

80 dead, but where are the wounded? I don’t know why if you had prisoners you wouldn’t tell the journalist that ” and we captured 100 and half are in hospital”. Either the 80 is a lie, a guess, a hope or the SF don’t take prisoners.
REPLYanan July 27, 2011 at 12:30 am


Joshua, most of the reports of foreign fighters come from Afghans. How many Afghans have you ever seen exxagerate? How many ANSF ever say anything less than the unvarnished objective truth?

More seriously, it is deeply misleading to imply that President Bush made a major attempt to fight the Taliban. The ANSF didn’t get significant combat enablers until after November, 2009. And even now the ANSF aren’t getting that many international combat enablers.

REPLYdoylecjd July 27, 2011 at 12:36 am


Christ, tenth tour?

REPLYJohnny Matrix July 27, 2011 at 12:56 am


Tenth tour = 48+/- months with socom = 4-5 conventional tours…but yeah, pretty diesel

REPLYDD July 27, 2011 at 4:27 am


Ah, Chechens. The Bigfoot of Afghanistan.

This is a tragedy. It’s a war, of some kind, at the end of the day. IEDs don’t care if it’s your 10th tour or day 3 of your 1st.

Having soldiers in a province doesn’t mean we’ve had soldiers saturate that province and secure it. Nuristan, Ghazni, Kapisa, Kunar. (just for starters) all have entire districts within them that we have either never touched, or haven’t touched in 5+ years.