Marine Corps sends tanks to Afghanistan to support troops, including 10,000 from Camp Pendleton

The U.S. Marines are sending 14 tanks to Afghanistan to support ground troops, including 10,000 Camp Pendleton Marines that are in Helmand province, officials announced Friday.

A company of M1-A1 tanks is set to arrive in Helmand in mid-December. It marks the first use of tanks by Marines in the nine-year war in Afghanistan.

The 60-ton tanks can be used to destroy roadside bombs, the enemy's weapon of choice against NATO and Afghan forces. The tanks can also guard key population centers and roads, and can move quickly across vast desert regions.

“Tanks provide us with a deadly-accurate weapons system that can be used very effectively against the enemy even as he tries to use the Afghan people as his shield,” said Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, the top Marine in Afghanistan.

RELATED:

Mock Afghan village at Camp Pendleton aims to prepare troops for combat

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: A role-player poses as an Afghan security officer in front of a building lined with cameras at the Marines' new faux-Afghan village at Camp Pendleton. Credit: Lance Cpl. John Robbart III

Comments

[morris wise]

There is no greater sin than the sin of wasting military power. The US cannot have its mighty forces going in circles while rouge regimes exist. It is the job of the US military to restore freedom to nations taken over by greedy and corrupt leaders. Their task will not be completed until the rouge regime in china is replaced by a freely elected government.

[james drake]

why will it take so long to help our men...they should have had them from the beginning

[Sam]

Morris - How about we just care as much about other nations as they do about us? This business of thinking we owe the planet a savior is just arrogant and dangerous. I'm not saying be closed, I'm saying be smarter. In the case of the Middle East, it is far cheaper and safer to just pay everybody off. And I thought after Viet Nam we would have learned not to 'save' anything at all -- If we go in, level it, leave. No other nation, ever, has gone in to 'save' the 'people' -- It is a fool's errand, and thankless, which is too high a price when someone's child is going to die.

[Andy K]

What took so long to send in the tanks? We seem to fight wars with our hands tied, If we fought the Germans that way we would all be speaking German. Remember the carpet bombing?