US Navy Seals Disaster - Further Reprisals

According to a report by Pajhwok Afghan News (PAN), US troops have been “detaining and harassing civilians” in the area since the downing of the Chinook helicopter.

Naimatullah, a resident of the area, told PAN that “US forces had besieged the Tangi Valley and have been searching people’s houses.” He added that anyone leaving his home was subject to arrest.

The news agency quoted a teacher at the local Imam Abu Hanifa High School, who confirmed that “a large number of foreign soldiers had surrounded the area.”

PAN said the teacher “warned of a humanitarian crisis if the siege of the populous area was not lifted. The residents are currently unable to take their patients to hospital, lack edibles and other essential items.”

More ominously, the news agency quoted a journalist who met soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) while en route to Tangi Valley. He said they warned him that “if you love your life, don’t go there; otherwise you will be killed.”

While the US media has been filled with tributes to the dead Navy SEALs and reports of both official and private mourning, the White House and the Pentagon have sought desperately to deny that the devastating attack has any military significance.

“This one single incident does not represent any kind of watershed or trend,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told the media. “We still have the Taliban on the run, we’ve reversed the momentum that they had. But they are still going to inflict casualties. That’s what they do.” Lapan said that the military’s Special Operation Command would “soldier on” despite the SEAL unit having lost approximately 10 percent of its members.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, speaking Monday at a change of command ceremony at the Special Operations Command headquarters in Florida, called the mass casualties a “reminder to the American people that we remain a nation at war.” He added, “As heavy a loss as this was, it would be even more tragic if we allowed it to derail this country from our efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and deny them a safe haven in Afghanistan.”

Panetta has invoked Al Qaeda as frequently as his predecessors in the Bush administration to justify the US war, even though the US military and intelligence agencies acknowledge that there is no significant presence of the terrorist movement in Afghanistan.