Extortion 17 – Never Forget

Today marks the 2^nd anniversary of Extortion 17. Another anniversary, another series of unanswered questions. It is starting to become the norm.

On 6 August 2011, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was shot down while transporting a quick reaction force attempting to reinforce an engaged Army Ranger unit in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan.

The resulting crash killed all 38 people on board, including 25 American special operations personnel, five helicopter crewmen, seven Afghan commandos, and one Afghan interpreter, as well as a U.S. military working dog. It is considered the worst loss of U.S Military life in the Afghanistan campaign, surpassing Operation Red Wings in 2005. Of the 25 special ops personnel killed, 22 were US Navy SEAL’s, inlcuing 15 from DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6).

That’s what happened. The question now is: what really happened? Too many unsettling questions remain to close the case on this. Yet, like in so many recent events, the silence is deafening.

If you don’t know about Extortion 17, then you owe it to those brave military men who lost their lives to research it and then ask: What really happened?

• Why was no air support cover provided during the mission into a live fire hot zone, in violation of standard protocol?

• Why were all of the bodies cremated without the families’ permission?

• Why were the seven Afghani troops originally listed on the flight changed at the last minute with seven others yet no changes were made to the flight manifest?

• Who ordered the Afghani troop change and for what reason?

• Why were the two flight data recorders supposedly not recovered from the crash site? A claim that a flash flood washed them away was given to the families. We recover them from the ocean floor, yet we can’t find them in a desert?

• What was the urgency that necessitated this last minute operation? Supposedly this was an urgent mission but no explanation or evidence has been provided to indicate why. Who provided the intelligence for this mission?

• The drone quit working at the time of the crash. The U.S. military also claims it did not know the identity of the helicopter that crashed for ten minutes. What caused the multi-layered surveillance and communications black out?

• After the crash, over one hundred U.S. military troops descended on the area, including pathfinders. Why were they not available before?

The people in this country have been divided into political camps. It is time for us to get our heads out of our collective asses and stop thinking as Republicans or Democrats and start thinking as Americans. We deserve better, and we owe it to the memory of those who have paid the ultimate price.