…that I despise the so-called ‘movie*’ called ‘Starship Troopers.’ It’s actually a hit on Cracked.com, who is doing its best to make that ‘movie’ a prophecy of the War on Terror. Here’s the part that stuck in the craw: it’s the attempt to equate the first Bug attack (a debacle for the ‘good guys’) with Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan…
Operation Anaconda was the first major engagement of the War On Terror. The idea was to attack a force of around 200 Al Qaeda soldiers in the Shahi-Kot Valley from the west, causing them to flee into the waiting arms of more US soldiers in the east, in what’s known as a “Hammer and Anvil” strategy.
Just one problem: Al Qaeda did not flee, but stood their ground.
Just one other problem: There were not 200 enemy soldiers in the valley; there were up to five times that amount.
Just one further other problem: the US military planners had assumed the enemy were armed with machine guns; they actually had mortars, rifles and rockets, and the planners assumed that Al Qaeda were in the valley, (they were in caves in the mountains surrounding the valley), and a convoy broke off from the main “TF Hammer” force to reach an observation point they’d been assigned to. And an AC-130, which was supposed to be providing firing and recon support during the battle thought they were an Al Qaeda convoy and attacked them. This friendly fire battle resulted in the first casualty of the operation.
The rest of TF Hammer came under heavy mortar fire from the prepared and entrenched Al Qaeda, and their air support turned out to consist of six bombs, and their attack didn’t actually make it into the valley, meaning that TF Anvil, arriving via helicopter, did not close the trap as had been intended, but instead found a trap closing around them, as they were attacked by an enemy who was better prepared, better armed, in greater numbers, and from a better-fortified position than they expected.
…nice recap of Wikipedia, there. But Cracked.com forgot the punchline: Continue reading This has nothing to do with the fact…