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The drug raid was not a direct part of the counterinsurgency against Taliban guerrillas, according to Afghan-based correspondents. NBC's Richard Engel identified the target as "a suspected drugs and weapons trafficker who supplies militants, including the Taliban." CBS' Mandy Clark referred to them merely as "drug smugglers." ABC's Jim Sciutto called it an attack "on a compound of an insurgent leader involved in trafficking opium." Sciutto stated that targeting the opium trade is a new strategy for the United States.
It was up to CBS' Lara Logan (at the tail of the Clark videostream) back in the New York City studio to tie the raid directly to the war itself. She questioned the Pentagon's account that the Chinook crash was an accident: "The Taliban commander of that region is saying very clearly that as the helicopter was taking off--when it was still flying low and it was still slow--that is when they hit from the righthand side with heavy machine gun fire and a rocket propelled grenade."
CBS' Clark tied the Chinook crash to a midair collision of a pair of USMC helicopters, a UH-1 Huey and a Cobra gunship--in the southern Helmand Province that killed four on board. "Afghanistan is a punishing environment for helicopters. This month alone the USArmy says it has lost six other helicopters, five to crashes, one to enemy fire."
David Rohde, a reporter for The New York Times, has been working the interview circuit since he published his account of his escape after being held hostage for seven months. Rohde was kidnapped in Afghanistan and kept prisoner across the Pakistani border in Waziristan. His latest stop for a q-&-a was with NBC's Ann Curry. He disabused her of the notion that the so-called tribal areas consisted of rudimentary mountain caves. "I was shocked at the strength of the Taliban control of the Pakistani tribal areas, It is a fully functional government. There were road crews repairing roads. There were police patroling streets." Yet when he escaped all he had to do to find freedom was walk down the road to a Pakistani military base nearby.
Rounding out the day's Afghanistan coverage, both NBC's Savannah Guthrie and CBS' David Martin covered a speech by Barack Obama in which he promised servicemen that he would not be rushed into a decision to send them off to war. CBS' Martin pointed out that "the argument over troops has taken a back seat to the drama of Afghanistan's disputed presidential election." The runoff vote is scheduled for November 7th "but there is no guarantee it will produce the result the Obama Administration needs most--a legitimate Afghan government."
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