Remember when the Democrats held up “unarmored Humvees” as the greatest crime ever committed against US troops?<\/p>\n
It all seems so long ago<\/a>, now:<\/p>\n Afghanistan is a country the size of Texas, with only a handful of major roads. So when the U.S. military wants to haul gear, supply isolated outposts, reposition forces, or evacuate wounded troops, the first, best and sometimes only option is to do so by helicopter.<\/p>\n Which means that the demand for helos at most U.S. bases far outstrips the supply. And the helicopters that do fly operate under unforgiving and often dangerous conditions, as we saw in Monday\u2019s twin copter calamities, which killed 14 Americans<\/a>. In short, helicopters are the irreplaceable connective tissue of the Afghanistan war effort \u2014 and its potential Achilles\u2019 heel. \u201cIt\u2019s our strategic weak point,\u201d a defense official told Danger Room.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Apparently we don’t have nearly enough of them:<\/p>\n For years, commanders have complained<\/a> that helicopters were the one thing they couldn\u2019t get enough of, and coalition forces in Afghanistan have often had to rely on outsourcing to fill in the gaps. \u201cWe definitely don\u2019t have enough helicopters<\/a>,\u201d British Foreign Office Minister Lord Maloch Brown recently said, before issuing a quick \u201cclarification.”…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Most of what I know about helicopters I learned from reading Colonel Charlie Beckwith’s book about the formation of “Delta Force” and its role in the Desert One raid.\u00a0 And it put me off of wanting to ever <\/em>fly in a helicopter.\u00a0 The main point; helicopters are incredibly fragile, and desert sand and dust makes thingsmuch, much worse.<\/p>\n …Even if more military helicopters are sent to Afghanistan, there\u2019s a much bigger issue: Operating rotary aircraft in Afghanistan can be extremely difficult.<\/p>\n