KABUL -- Three helicopter crashes in Afghanistan on Monday killed 14 Americans, and two others died on the battlefield, making for the deadliest day for the U.S. in the country in four years.
Also Monday, presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah demanded that the country's top election official be removed ahead of his Nov. 7 runoff vote against President Hamid Karzai, further complicating a process encumbered by concerns about logistics, security and fraud. Mr. Karzai rejected the demands.
The deadliest of Monday's crashes occurred in the northwest province of Badghis, following a firefight with insurgents. The crash killed seven U.S. troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and injured 11 U.S. troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans. It is unclear if enemy fire was responsible for the crash, a statement from the international forces said.
In a separate incident early Monday morning, two U.S. Marine heliciopters collided, killing four soldiers, military officials said. Two other soldiers died Monday in separate battlefield incidents.
It was the heaviest single-day loss of American life in Afghanistan since June 2005, when insurgents shot down a helicopter, killing 16 U.S. troops.
The deaths came as the Obama adminstration continued its assessment of what to do next in Afghanistan, given the deteriorating security and political situation.
Dr. Abdullah, the runner-up in the fraud-tainted first round of voting in August, said Azizullah Ludin, chairman of the Independent Election Commission, the body that is conducting the polls, should be removed because he has "no credibility."
The IEC has been accused of bias in favor of Mr. Karzai and allowing electoral fraud to take place. Mr. Ludin denied the charges. "Every election has a winner and a loser, and in this case the loser is complaining," said Mr. Ludin.
Mr. Karzai had won the August presidential election, with nearly 55% of the vote, but a United Nations-backed elections watchdog threw out more than one million votes that it said were fraudulent. This pushed Mr. Karzai's total under 50%, which forces a runoff according to Afghan law.
Dr. Abdullah also listed demands including the suspension of government ministers and access for his campaign team to IEC meetings. He said the government must comply with these demands by Oct. 31, although he declined to say what he would do if it didn't.
Two senior aides said the candidate was seriously considering boycotting the second round. That could undermine efforts to stabilize Afghanistan at a time when the government's credibility is weak -- and the likelihood is small that the election will strengthen it.
Mr. Karzai said in a statement he won't fire the election official or make changes to his cabinet ahead of the runoff, Reuters reported.
8 comments:
it just goes to show when a general requests more troops on the ground its probably a good thing to actualy listen to him... weve played this game before and it never works when we let politicians run our military its never worked it cant work because they have their head in the dark and know absolutly nothing about the art of war thats what made patton one of the greatest generals of all time he said skrew politics let me do this my way and he actualy got stuff done. if were going to commit to this war we eather need to do it or let it die. we eather commit 100% and win or we dont and destabalize the entire region i have actualy talked to people who make the decisions and studied this region their entire life and know that if we let these countries fall back into the hands of the taliban then the whole region will go up in flames "those who dont know the past are destined to repeat it"
UNAPOLOGETICALLY AMERICAN
The run off candidates are making the election very complicated. What they are trying to do with each other’s cabinets is weakening the status of the Afghan president. The 16 deaths show that if America decides to bring in more troops they must up their security and pay better attention to where each other are. A crash where two American helicopters run into each other, shows that something is not right.
The run off candidates are making the election very complicated. What they are trying to do with each other’s cabinets is weakening the status of the Afghan president. The 16 deaths show that if America decides to bring in more troops they must up their security and pay better attention to where each other are. A crash where two American helicopters run into each other, shows that something is not right.
i cant believe we are doing this again! What are we doing in Afghanistan now? Are our actually intentions to defeat Al Queda or use our troops for another worthless campaign. Its absolutly ridiculous how politicians just dont care for the effects of war on the troops. They just care for the effects on their reelection. Politicians, like any civlian, dont really know how it feels to be on the frontline and therefore dont really have a good idea of how difficult war is on a soldier. God Bless the Troops.
I think that if their government isn't going to try to help fix their own country, then we shouldn't give up our troops to help them. The government officials are the easiest to bribe and they are very easy to become corrupted and trusting people's lives in their hands is the worst thing we can do. If we just dedicate ourselves completely to this war for some time, then we can just win and be done with it. Instead of having our troops die constantly and not getting anywhere. Since leaving that country to their people is obviously gonna ruin that entire country and maybe even that entire continent if the taliban get freedom to do whatever they want and if they can get all the guns in the world.
Something is not right because more and more american soliders are gettin hurt. We need to change something, because bring in more amreicans and killing them is not helping, or making a difference. We need to stop this war. We have already been in afghanistan and just going back to kill more people is not worth it. Just leave and forget aboout what is happeining there. Because killing americans is not helping at all.
We need to settle this once and for all, or someone does. They need to realize this is a country and a whole population we are dealing with. They need to make an affective decision that won't disrupt anything but will fix the matters at hand. If all these soldiers and innocent civilians are dying they need to immediately search for a solution. No one is goiong to benefit if the two candidates continue to bicker and if people keep choosing "sides" which is getting them no where, because the elections aren't even legit. we need to do something to atleast provide protection for our troops in return for their service, that's the least we can do.
The use of a war as a political move just goes to show you how politicians in washington work. We have to rely on the commanders on the ground to make judgments and advise the president, who will in turn use that advice to the soldiers' on the ground benefit, not as a political stance.
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