A symbolic defeat for America?
The AP is reporting that 20 members of Navy SEAL Team Six — the unit responsible for Osama bin Laden’s killing — were among those killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Some sources indicate that none of the SEAL members who died in the crash were present during the Islamabad night raid back in May, but nearly all agree that this is the largest death toll from a Taliban attack in the Afghanistan War’s 10-year history.
If true, can we admit that this is a symbolic defeat for America? Three months after we stormed the Capitol steps in a barbaric celebration of Osama bin Laden’s killing, the Taliban shoots down a helicopter containing 20 Navy SEALS who were part of the unit responsible for bin Laden’s death. What more could signify our militaristic impotency than suffering the single greatest loss of life in a war that was initiated an entire decade ago? Especially given that the loss included 20 members who were part of a team that had killed the ailing and some say long-insignificant despot who had triggered that very war? What Capitol steps are Taliban members storming at this very moment, celebrating America’s defeat with the same glee that enraptured our own youth the day of Osama’s death?
Simon Owens is a journalist and media consultant living Washington, DC. You can read his blog, follow him on Twitter, or email him at simon.bloggasm@gmail.com
7 Responses to “A symbolic defeat for America?”
Maybe, maybe not — I just see it a tragedy, and if it involved SEAL Team Six, a bitterly ironic one.
I find it hard to equate a single action of this magnitude to a “defeat.” Having said that losing a 20 member SEAL team is a gigantic blow. The training and and institutional memory that was lost will be costly and draining to recreate. A very tragic incident.
Our enemies can crow about it if they like, my guess is that hell will follow for them though. This is a punch to a well armed hornets nest.
If you have to rely on flying people around the battle field to fight a war, expect multiple deaths from crashes and shoot downs. No other way around it.
A victory for the Taliban? Heck a soldier killed in a car crash in Vermont is a victory for the Taliban. At this point I’m not concerned with Taliban victories because they are small and insignificant in the overall. I am saddened by theirs deaths, but they died knowing that they are far better human beings than their enemy. That in itself is a massive victory.
Shame on you Mr. Owen for using such a tragic event—on the very same day that military officers are knocking on the doors of fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters to notify them of the death of their loved ones—to draw political, military or ideological inferences.
Save your personal prejudices and your macabre “symbolism” for another day, at least until after our soldiers have been buried.
[What Capitol steps are Taliban members storming at this very moment, celebrating America’s defeat with the same glee that enraptured our own youth the day of Osama’s death?]
You are very right, they have no capital steps to celebrate on. Ha ha very good.
With this election comming up who are you going to give more power to with your vote,
Bush gave aid to the taliban, as he did with the support of the “House of Saud” and the Bin Ladin family in which I believe 11-15 911 hijackers came from, Created this bullshit corporate war in Iraq… which will be no shortage of DOD(taxpayers) money and Afgahnistan at and least until 2012. The assassination of Afgahn’s leader Karzai and his brother along with the drone missions in Lybia by Obama, I mean the US is still giving aid to the Taliban!
“Defeat”????? I think it’s a damned safe bet the Navy Seals who gave their lives would never have used the word “defeat” in describing the giving of their lives.