That is the name of a book I have just read written by Doug Stanton.
It is the fabulous story of how fewer than fifty Special Forces troops took down the Taliban in two months, rather than the two years the Pentagon thought it would take.
They and about 15,000 irregular troops of the Northern Alliance, mounted on horseback, defeated 50-60,000 Taliban and Al Quaeda, and took the fortress at Mazar-i-Sharif.
With B-52s or FA-18s circling overhead to assist with GPS guided bombs, these guys conducted cavalry charges against tanks, other armored vehicles and machine guns, and prevailed against tough and tenacious fighters.
When they finally took Mazar-i-Sharif, half of the Special Forces guys stayed behind while the Northern Alliance and the other half continued the pursuit of the Taliban.
After they were gone, some 600 Taliban prisoners kept in the fort got their hands on weapons stored there and staged a revolt, killing a CIA agent there to interrogate some of them. John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, was among the prisoners.
In a 96 hour long battle, the Special Forces fought the prisoners until the Northern Alliance came back from Konduz, and a few reinforcements from the 10th Mountain Division arrived.
They were later reinforced with other Special Forces, but what happened back then is that about a total of 350 American Special Forces and 100 CIA agents, along with the Northern Alliance, managed to do something that the Chinese, the British, and the Soviet Union had all failed to do. Conquer Afghanistan.
Read the book and get an inkling why we are going to lose it back, and why we really are losing or have lost Iraq.
Its a fabulous story.
To bad Hollywood is too left wing to produce a movie about it.
2 comments:
I know why. It is called politics!!
JR
I'm thinking of getting some more horses for transportation. Who knows where we are going with this crazy in the White House. At least they can eat the grass along the highways and streets.
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