Taliban dig in for big assault, say Afghan villagers

Hey, this shit is looking better than the Super Bowl. Is it too late to get some fucking tickets? We'll have a tailgate party outside town and then hunker down for some macho kick ass fighting.

USA!, USA!, USA! NATO! NATO! NATO!

Football people speak in military jargon all the time. Attack! Kill! Assault! Enemy! No prisoners! You probably know most of the rest.

But this is the real shit. Real combat with real killing and something the NFL doesn't have... things exploding. Fireworks? We'll give you fireworks up the ass until you can't hobble to work on Monday.

Taliban militants are massing and preparing for a big fight ahead of a major NATO offensive in an insurgent stronghold in southern Afghanistan, villagers fleeing the area said on Sunday.

U.S. Marines are set to launch a massive operation within days to take Marjah, a dense warren of canals and lush farmland in the centre of Helmand, the country's most violent province.

Military commanders are dubbing the area the last big Taliban enclave in the province. The offensive, one of the biggest of the eight-year-old war, will mark the first major show of force since U.S. President Barack Obama ordered in 30,000 extra troops.

Washington hopes the Marine operation will help decisively turn the momentum this year in a war that commanders accept has not been going their way. They have also not kept the planned offensive a secret, hoping the militants will give up the fight.

"It has to do with letting people know what's coming in the hope that the hardcore Taliban, or a lot of the Taliban, will simply leave, and maybe there will be less of a fight," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Turkey on Saturday.

According to some of the villagers escaping Marjah in fear of their lives, fighters are digging in rather than fleeing.

Two questions: Will there be cheerleaders? Will they have on undies?

I always find dark humor preferable to unmanly crying or actually cheering for death and destruction.

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