Kudos!!! 5 less psychos. Time to let Afghanistan return to the 12th century.

Well Done!

While I applaud the rescue, I can't think of a good reason for going there to begin with. We are not wanted there and even the troops we train turn upon us and kill us. They likely set up the kidnapping of these aid workers to begin with. Let Darwin deal with these people and maybe in a few thousand years, they will get to where we are now. Watch http://video.pbs.org/video/2183223771 and tell me these people are civilized. Paying debts with young female children? What are we trying to save? Antibiotics are the only drugs needing regulation and that is poorly done. Corruption, not morals, keeps drugs illegal and the sheeple are just plain stupid and largely hypocrites. Poppies will grow in the US too and would, if not for the corruption and 'Christia' law.

Known as inviting trouble and then solving them.

Why the aid workers should go to those places, where there are chances of kidnapped, held captive or killed?

Afghans, Pakis, Somalis should solve their own problems.

Why do aid workers go there? Because they are better people than us!

"It was an extraordinarily brave, breathtaking even, operation that our troops had to carry out," U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said, according to BBC News. "I pay tribute to their skill and dedication."

Now this is the way a leader acknowledges his troops accomplishments.

Not like Dumbama who makes it sound like he did it all by himself when BL was killed.

How I wish we would have a leader with integrity. Perhaps the next time around!

You certainly don't believe a Bain Capitalist like Romney is a man of integrity? LOL!

We need to GTFO. The Taliban will always be there.

The conditions in the US, Britain and most European nations are a total mess due to bad economic conditions.

Are there no places right in here to do these social works instead of those places where one is not wanted?

@Albieon - Did you neeed to degrade off-topic? Just so we're all sure, tell me you are aware how many pension plans and union funds invested their money with Bain. It's awfully duplicitous to agree from one side of your mouth to let Bain handle your retirement, then damn the process when one of their former employees is running against your candidate.

Muslim dogs do not deserve our help. They have been fighting since their beginning, they will never stop, just let them die.

Amost as good.

Try saying that in hereford UK.

JW

Spent a few weeks with some SAS on training long time ago. They were a good bunch. They are highly skilled and motivated. As a group they will stand up well when compared with best anyone has to offer.

Congrats on a mission well done.

Almost as good? C'mon, now. This was a brilliant operation, no more or less brilliant than our bin Laden Operation or the one that rescued Jessica IForgetHerLastName or any other rescue operation. These guys are all just super! Kudos to them.

That said, I have to agree with some of the others. When will humanitarians stop putting their countries in these pickles? There are SO many needy people around the world they can help, without diving into these horribly dangerous situations that then cost their governments millions of dollars. Did they accomplish anything? Nope, they didn't help a single soul.

Sorry, JS in SD ...The SAS have forgotten more about their craft than the SEALS currently know - they are both damn good - but the SAS are acknowledged within that circle as the finest counter terror unit worldwide.

I also have to agree with many other's here. A great job of just getting it done, as it should be!

And also like many other's who seem to take offense to the term 'almost as good' that once again gives credit to the world's view of American arrogance .

I would hope, as I know usually JS your respectful of those who sacrifice, that it was just a poor choice of word's on your part. Choosen to identify the group most likely involved in such a dareing mission. Because they are the 'equivilant' of the US Seal Team. They are an ally whose action's and loyalty are equal to and, if not at time's more so, as honorable as anyone in a US uniform. They deserve ever American's equal respect, but most of all, this group of elite soldier's deserves, if they know it or not, an apology!

Almost as good?!

Comments like this demonstrate why 1.) we are historically looked upon as arrogant and imperious across the globe and 2.) Obama is the only visible, available and qualified statesman and political figure that can favorably represent this country on the world stage.

zhovti, YOU are a moron! Why don't you and obama take a hike and move to some third world country, you know, like the one obama is trying to turn the U.S. into. If you don't love it here LEAVE.

Really!!! obama a qualified statesman and political figure that can favorably represent this country on the world stage! WHAT QUALIFICATIONS DOES HE HAVE???

Bowing down to arabs? Lying about his education? His past drug use? His past gay life? The real jobs he NEVER had? The businesses he NEVER ran? The Military experience he NEVER received?

He's nothing more than a con man and a puppet!

He is a JOKE to foreign leaders all over the world.

130,000 troops there with equipment and in a landlocked country. Almost time for the whole mob to head west through Iran.

What is wrong with you calling these people idiots?!?! These were not some irresponsible tourists, they were medical personnel on a mercy mission to help victims injured in the severe floods they have had in the region. The reason they were using donkeys to get around is that the flooding has wiped out the roads in the area, not because they felt like taking a donkey ride through the countryside. The idiots are the kidnappers who are grabbing medical personnel who are only there to help the locals!!!

they got themselves captured by the Taliban. I'll stand by my statement. We are there to win a war ( I think).

leroy - it should have sunk in on the dimmmest of bulbs that the way to win a war of this nature is not merely by killling as many people as you can. DO I have to connnec the dots, here?Have you heard of VIetnam? Hearts and minds sound familiar?

Leroy, these idiots try to eliminate polio, endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so your world is even softer.

Let's not blow out of proportion Leroy's reference to these people as idiots, it detracts from what this story is all about.

These are brave people who left the safety and comfort of their homes to try to make a tortured part of the world a little less torturous. I'm sure Britain's SAS see those doctors and aid workers in the same light and were, therefore, eager and proud to execute this operation.

Congratulations to bavery, to include the aid workers, the doctors and the SAS.

No, they are idiots.

Getting captured so you can get your head cut off with a three inch pocket knife made in China is not the "smart thing" to be doing when you can easily avoid it by using some common sense.

Concepts such as armed escorts, or working in partnership with ISAF to secure transportation to the affected area.

I can see some of you are very naive, it's all right no one will hold it against you.

Here's a concept. Lets send aid only to friendly entities.

Where's the logic in making sure our enemies are healthy???

HierarchyLaw; Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Let's agree to disagree; I believe these people are not idiots but brave humanitarians.

They should not have been there in the first place. Let the animals live in their 12th century and pack up and come home. They don't deserve any better.

The aid workers entered with some altruistic idea that their efforts will be appreciated and they can operate with impunity. Sorry, but, they entered an area locked in the past whose populous are captive to a tradition of pain and retribution.

This is the price that we are paying for the oil that we use. Instead of bribing it out of the middle east, we should have indocrinated them to the 'future' that they were being thrust into. Giving modern weapons to a group of people does not automatically modernize them. Just makes them more dangerous to deal with in the long run.

These medical workers are actually spies. That is why they get captured. It makes a good story that they are relief workers...

You hit the nail. For this reason some without much ideas of those places are making comments on your posts.

Are there not many good people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and those areas to take care of their own people?

Also when most of the times, many are busy with either hate or kill, kill marches or jihad, why worry too much about them?

It is ironic that at one time in history, the Muslim world was actually far ahead of everybody else in the way of math, technology and science. We use Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals. Yeah, that's were the name came from. These guys invented algebra. There were leaders in astronomy and many other scientific fields. Then the religious zealots took over and virtually destroyed much of what they had advanced. This religious zealotry froze them in time, after first taking them backwards a couple centuries or more.

The sad thing as that most of the people are just simple people trying to survive. Unfortunately surviving in lawless, ungoverned regions means that the power brokers make the rules. In reality, the Taliban is just a bunch of thugs hiding behind religion. What most people don't realize is that the vast majority of people in the region don't really like the Taliban, but they have little choice but to obey in order to survive. There is no government police or military to keep law in the region and protect those who would stand up against these thugs, so the people are forced to be submissive and "supportive".

Something that many also miss is that one of the few ways that the average people have to ease this oppression is to very quietly feed intel to those who would strike the Taliban down with the ruthlessness of a special forces team or a Predator drone. You may see the locals publicly complaining about such attacks, but in reality many of these people pray to Allah that they happen.

Softdude posted a link to a pretty good PBS Frontline that has two interesting stories. It is a good view. In it you can get a sense of the trick bag that many of these local people are in. These people simply want to survive and live their simple lives. The Taliban does offer some financial aid and some sense of law, but it comes with a terrible price.

It is risky business for these aid workers to try to provide help to the people in the region. We can debate how wise that is, but we also should recognize that they are there attempting to help make life better for normal, average people. The work they do as Westerners, does have a positive impact on hearts and minds of the populace. They at least understand that we are not all brutal conquerors looking to control their lives. The Taliban don't want any of us seen in any redeeming light because that threatens their control.

Personally I see the tide slowly turning in some ways. Troops on the ground isn't the answer because we can't provide security 24/7. The local know that and they don't like foreigners making rules for them. Anyone who is seen associating with our troops could easily be targeted by the Taliban as soon as our back is turned. I think when you look at the shear number of drone attacks, you have to realize that they are coming from extensive on the ground intelligence. The locals are quietly ratting these guys out and they can do it in an anonymous fashion and their oppressors get struck down as if God did it with a lightning strike. The fact that we are getting a lot of intel that leads to a lot of strikes, suggests that at least some portion of the locals see the benefits of "getting their prayers answered", with the assistance of the Western war machine. It has a lot of advantages. They experience no occupation and they don't have to suffer through interrogations and another controlling force altering their lives. They can get their information out without any visible evidence of "cooperating with the enemy". If you think about it, it is a lot like praying to God to smite your enemies and then out of the blue they get vaporized. Or like in this case, some intervening "angels" fly down and smoke the bad guys and are gone just as quickly as they arrived.

The Taliban IS a criminal gang. They are also a subhuman anomaly of evolution, whose branch off the tree of evolution is somewhere between the first bipeds and homo sapiens. They have not improved since. There is no hope of ever changing their behavior, short of the usual bullet through the head, as it is encoded in their defective DNA.

...somehow I'm not satisfied with that answer.

Actually it is probably 'lawyer speak' for Taliban which is polite conversation for a$$holes.

thank you Mymomdidnotraiseafoool for providing verification of the second rule of the internet i.e. a posters name willl always be the exct oppposite of what they post. e.g. A guy who callls himself TheRationalOne willl always post something like "President Obama is secretly training an army of muslim spider monkeys to come down white people's chimneys on CHristmas Eve to steal their guns." THis post willl usuallly be seconded by someone callled "Original THinker."

journaljournal:

Allow me to disamibguate "Taliban" and "criminal gang" - the two are concrete synonyms, even in an Afghan dictionary.

Ronald....not true...those are radical socialist liberal buttwipe DNC spider monkeys......and they have not as yet figured out what a "chimney" is, so they are crawling up each others butts. Hmmmm....now I know why libs are always staring at their colons.

Anyone know where I can get a monkey screen? Thanks RHR - I will feel safer this coming Christmas.

'Sorry kids, no presents this year. But we are safe from the presidents trained chimney assassins'

They are called "TERRORISTS".. But our Western Press does not use such wording. Perhaps for fear that these "TERRORISTS" will start kidnapping their own Western News reporters? Instead they substitute names like: insurgent, militia, freedom fighter, hostage taker, Taliban/Hisbullah/Hamas, armed revolutionary. Any wording but what they really are: "TERRORISTS". Rest assured, if these TERRORIST'S could do you, or your children harm. They would indeed!! But five people riding donkeys in Afghanistan, made easier targets this time..

The Media reluctance is not about selling their souls for a single word. You should be ashamed of yourselves. What kind of whores do you think the news corporations are? They have sold their souls for two words, "ISLAMIC TERRORISTS".

...no, not really. :)

But if you want to sit in your armchair in the safety of your own home, there's still lots of good you can do.

That's what I thought. But I got slammed for saying it.

Don't waste your life trying to save people who want you dead. How would they feel if that chopper got shot down saving their stupid butts?

They are not "trying to save people who want you dead" - they are trying to save villagers, women and children mostly, who appreciate whatever assistance arrives because the extremists surely do not provide any.

Floretta

You're right. The average citizen of any country does not want war. Nor do they necessarily wish harm to the average citizen of any other country. They just happen to be caught in the middle.

Floretta...absolutely correct. I think the majority of casualties in Afghanistan are simply caught in the line of fire, both politically and in battle.

Sorry Flo. But you are assuming and projecting that assertion. I have no clue what 'those' people want. I just see the results of a majority of their actions, or inactions.

I will reserve my judgement for the day I see them stand forward and declare their desires. Until then, we can only make our assumptions, one way or another.

"The aid workers, employed by Swiss-based Medair, were en route to flood-stricken parts of Badakhshan province when they were kidnapped."

Why go to unwanted places and act as big saints?

Many are suspicious of Western aid workers as Christian evangelists or spies.

"their" not "there"

What do all these do gooders think is going to happen when we pull out. Entire thing is a waste of time ,lives & Money.

One of the better ways to defeat the Taliban is in fact to seek them out, under whichever rocks they are hiding, and eliminate them. Give the whole 'movement' no rest until every single member is a greasy smear along the roadside to peace and prosperity in that twelfth-century sh**hole.

GREG, ... yes I agree w/you, THEY are naught but a bunch a bunch of NIT WITS & MORONS. Tis sooooooooooooo obvious to the whole wide world too. Imposwsible to teach morons such as them annnnnnnything.

denko95...non-American doctors rescued by non-American NATO forces. What part of that ain't you grasping? You can tell the rescue team was't American by the fact President Obama hasn't taken credit for it yet.

Common sense has nothing to do with it. These aid workers followed a deeper call. The world is a better place because they did what the rest of us couldn't/wouldn't.

Bombing women and children. You must be proud.

Your assumptions are ridiculous, as for many other comments on here that keep stating it is stupid to put their lives on the line in suicide missions. You people think like you know more than they do, well your ALL WRONG! This is not a hobby for these people, its their mission in life. They are fully aware of the risks and dangers even more than you know. And the comment about expecting to be rescued is immature, none of these workers expect anything other than to give their own lives for the benefit of others.
Should we close down the fire departments because they put their lives on the line? What about our own police that get shot at daily? These accusations are all based that everyone is at risk in being kidnapped, well their are millions of humanitarians around the world and the amount that actually get kidnapped and killed are very small. You have a greater chance of getting mugged in an American city than you do to get kidnapped in the rest of the world.

Since the spokesman was a Lieutenant Commander, my suspicion is that the 'team' were SBS not SAS. Either way, those five members of the Taliban got their longed for face-to-face with Allah, who I hope will send them straight to hell.

The aid workers are brave heroes in my mind. I greatly respect the people who everyday put the needs of others above their own desire for comfort or safety. The world needs more of these peope not less of them. They deserve your admiration and respect but thankfully they are above actually needing any such recognition from anyone.

Why are people suggesting that aid workers find a "safer" way to serve, or that the aid workers should serve locally instead? A human being in need is a human in need and just because they may exist inside your geo-political boundary (country or town etc. for the lesser among us) does not make them any more deserving of any help. The sooner we get that into our heads and stop thinking about people in distant places as irrelevant the better off the world will be. All 7billion people are your neighbors ... they are all locals ... treat them accordingly.

Do you really think the volunteers (brave heroes in my mind) described in the news piece below are stupid or that they should have found a safer way to be humane?

May 31st - "The Syrian army launched a full scale attack on the city of Homs, Syria. Hundreds of rockets and many wounded and dead were treated inside a mobile field hospital clinic located in a city under siege. Two to three rockets hit the field hospital wounding a few medical volunteers. Despite the threat of being killed by mortar or rocket fire these volunteer doctors and nurses face arrested, torture, and certain death if they are captured by the Syrian regime. These doctors and nurses work under harsh conditions with little medical supplies that are smuggled into the city from Lebanon. Despite these odds the doctors and nurses are able to see over 100 patients per day and conduct life saving operations daily."

1. "do their" not "does there"

2. I'd be happy to hear your answer to your question.

Volunteer in a local soup kitchen.

Volunteer in a local hospital.

Read some books at your local libraries story hour.

Must I go on?

The point is: you do not have to travel far to find people in need.

Dear Mo,

Thank you so much for the grammar and spell check; so glad to see your interest to help.

Maybe now you can get out there (or, tell me, is it their? [ha ha!]) and help others in a more constructive, beneficial, and profoundly lasting way.

See you at the soup kitchen.

I will reiterate; with corrections. (Thanks Mo)

It is so nice to see people wanting to help the less fortunate but, these health workers must surly have a death wish. Not only does their actions put themselves in harms way, they also put others lives and welfare at risk. Is there not a better way to serve humanity?

Lestening to obama tell it he was the one that killed binladin. Seal Team 6 was just there on standby in case they were needed.

If you actually had "lestened" to what he said, I might believe you. the fact that he was willing to supply details does not detract from the Seals's actions or those who would have been "crucified" by your ilk, had the mission failed.

Funny....When Nato soldiers rescue hostages, they are considered "extraodinarily brave". However, when American forces rescue hostages, they are labeled as "heroes" by the American press. No wonder there is growing tension between the European Nato countries and the USA about their role in Afganistan.