Slog
News & ArtsSunday, September 30, 2012
War Meanwhile in Afghanistan
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 5:52 PM
Five are dead—two Americans, three Afghans—after troops in the midst of a "misunderstanding" started shooting at each other.
The Afghan soldier who started the shooting is dead, so it's hard to know what happened. But it sounds like "insider attacks" might be the next stage of the IED: sneaking insurgents into the Afghan army on suicide missions to fire at American troops and cause short-term mayhem and long-term distrust.
Insider attacks this year have increased greatly compared with 2011, when there were 35 over 12 months, arousing concern in the coalition, as well as in Western capitals. French forces announced that they were leaving by the end of next year, a year earlier than originally planned, after losing four of their soldiers in an insider attack in January.
In addition to restricting joint patrols by small units, the military has also required its forces to wear body armor and carry loaded weapons whenever they are in the presence of Afghan forces...
A senior American military officer said recently that only a fourth of the insider attacks could be definitely linked to insurgent infiltration of the Afghan security forces, and another fourth were judged to have been caused by personal disputes. The rest, however, usually resulted in the death of the perpetrator and it was unclear what the cause was.
It's a devilish and clever strategy to keep the chaos rolling and stymie efforts at coalition- and nation-building. The Taliban's greatest enemy is a stable, secular, viable alternative to their way of ruling the country.
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I don't know who's paying off who, never will. I think I know that Dan Savage's nephew is a marine, and maybe us sloggers could just say a quick prayer for his safety, or cross you're fingers for sec if you're not religious.
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Based on the last bit of the paragraph following the Watan Risk paragraph, would it not be more accurate to title the article "US Taxpayers Fund Afghan Warlords"?
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The Afghan government (the Taliban) did not attack us.
Al Queda attacked us.
The Taliban had allowed Al Queda to set up shop in Afghanistan.
To the Afghan people, this is an incredibly obvious difference.
Which is one of the reasons that even after 10 years of occupation they still find people willing to die as long as they can take an American with them.
Another reason is the corrupt government that WE set up and that WE maintain. See Egypt for a previous example.
Bush lost Afghanistan when he decided to invade Iraq.
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"Six of one, half dozen of the other."
To Americans, yes.
To the Afghan people, no.
"We gave the Taliban plenty of time, under threat of war, to turn over bin Laden and they refused."
That was 10 years ago.
And the US didn't limit itself to killing only Al Queda.
Nor did the US limit itself to killing the Taliban.
So now we're facing people who have, for 10 years, seen us kill their innocent (not Taliban, not Al Queda) friends, family and children.
We can call it "collateral damage" but that is only to make us feel better about ourselves.
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The sooner we leave both Iraq and Afghanistan and ignore the entire Middle East, the better.
"I like how you selectively forget the enslavement of half the population by the Taliban."
Really? That's where you want to go?
When did women get the right to vote in the USofA?
"I suppose it's not noble enough to make that a part of our cause that we make women Afghan citizens and not rape slaves."
So in your mind it is better that a woman be killed by an American bomb than she live her life under oppression.
And that's the problem with that logic.
We didn't invade because they discriminated against women.
Even our allies over there oppressed women.
Look up Egypt. Look up Kuwait. Look up Saudi Arabia.
And we SUPPORTED those governments.
When we kill a woman in Afghanistan we run the risk of turning her family and friends into fanatics who will die as long as they can take one American with them.
We do NOT liberate that woman.
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