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| Afghanistan |
| U.S. military suspends joint patrols with Afghans |
| 2012-09-18 |
| The strategy for getting U.S. forces out of Afghanistan depends on training Afghan soldiers and police to protect the country themselves, but on Monday the U.S. military suspended most joint field operations with Afghan forces because so many Americans are being killed by the men they are training. Afghan government troops have turned their guns on NATO forces 36 times this year, killing 51, most of them Americans. That is more attacks than the last two years combined. The order effectively suspends "until further notice" most of the operations which U.S. and Afghan troops conduct side by side. At higher headquarters, Afghans and Americans will still work together, but in the field small unit operations putting Afghan soldiers alongside Americans -- the guts of the U.S. strategy to turn the fighting over to Afghans -- will be suspended unless an exception is granted by a commanding general. The order was issued after a long weekend in which four American and two British troops were killed by so-called "insider attacks" -- Afghans turning their guns on their supposed allies. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey called the surge in insider attacks "a very serious threat to the campaign." One U.S. official put it simply: "We have got to do a better job at protecting our troops." U.S. officials say that somewhere between 10 percent and 25 percent of the insider attacks are the work of enemy infiltrators. The rest are the result of personal insults and just plain cultural misunderstandings. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #10 There is one effective solution: leave. We gain nothing from staying in Afghanistan. I feel bad for those Afghans who want to enter the modern world, but they seem a small minority. The old response to things like 9/11 was to erase the perps' relatives and/or tribe from the gene pool. Our response has been to try to civilize them. The mind boggles. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-09-18 18:41 |
| #9 The strategic wedge directed by the Quetta Shura last year is working. Next step, entire Afghan units go rogue, establish no-go/no-fly areas for ISAF, in support of the Taliban. Border crossings and other areas adjacent the border with Pakistan will be first. Watch it happen. Isn't this a Pashtun-only thing? Wouldn't the appropriate thing to do be de-Pashtunize the Afghan force? That's what any colonial power of yore would have done. Heck, the old-style response to things like this would be to do a number on the perp's extended family. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-09-18 18:38 |
| #8 There is one effective solution: leave. We gain nothing from staying in Afghanistan. I feel bad for those Afghans who want to enter the modern world, but they seem a small minority. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2012-09-18 16:34 |
| #7 We should have treated them as the enemy and not an ally and shot when necessary. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-09-18 13:18 |
| #6 Well, at least we finally got the enemy to wear uniforms. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-09-18 12:07 |
#5 Is there any patterns? Yeah, when there are Afghans around, these spontaneous murders break out. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2012-09-18 12:06 |
| #4 The strategic wedge directed by the Quetta Shura last year is working. Next step, entire Afghan units go rogue, establish no-go/no-fly areas for ISAF, in support of the Taliban. Border crossings and other areas adjacent the border with Pakistan will be first. Watch it happen. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-09-18 07:35 |
| #3 Is there any patterns? |
| Posted by: Menhadden Ebbomoger5510 2012-09-18 02:57 |
| #2 How many died upholding a COIN strategy that didn't have a sponsor after Petraeus left? |
| Posted by: Varmint Oppressor of the Hatfields7975 2012-09-18 02:33 |
| #1 Maybe Dempsey could call the Afghanis personally and ask them to play nice. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2012-09-18 01:35 |