US launches major offensive against Taliban

Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency with an assault deep into Taliban territory.

Operation River Liberty, which the Marines call simply "the decisive op", is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, heartland of the Taliban insurgency and the world's biggest heroin producing region.

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"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan said in a statement.

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Wave upon wave of helicopters landed Marines in the early morning darkness at locations throughout the valley, a crescent of opium and wheat fields criss-crossed by canals and dotted with mud-brick homes, where firmly entrenched fighters defied NATO forces for years.

Hundreds more Marines raced by ground in convoys through a barren area known as the Desert of Death.

Notice the good news? That's the [London] Times Online — and they are, if anything, practically jingoistic about the "wave upon wave of ... Marines."  No; don't get your hopes up about the NYT. Baby steps, dear reader; baby steps...

Under President Obama, the US force in Afghanistan is more than doubling this year, from 32,000 at the start of 2009 to an anticipated 68,000 troops by year's end, many of them diverted from Iraq. Other Western countries have about 33,000 troops in Afghanistan.

Not a peep about BEING BETRAYED, or LIED TO, or the troops being BABY-KILLERS and THUGS.

Thank you, Mr. Obama, for your wide coat-tails, upon which even formerly loathed elements of society can ride in comfort!

As for most of the press, and their naked partisanship? They can bite me.