The latest outrage in Afghanistan took place in the early morning darkness of Thursday. It illustrates precisely – once again – why western countries are losing ground. This time it happened a few kilometres south of the capital city, Kabul.
Frightened and trigger happy, badly led, ill-equipped, poorly- trained for what they are expected to do, American soldiers killed several of the Afghan policemen our tax dollars had recently helped to train.
Zemarai Bashary, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul, confirmed the shooting and called it a “misunderstanding".
The American soldiers who did the killing were not part of NATO.
(Eight people were detained by American soldiers, but two were from the provincial Education Department).
I wonder if Mr. Manley will send someone to interview the parents, wives and children of those dead Afghan policemen.
Manley was right about one thing though…there’s no strategy there. Read more here.
It’s worth reading the LA Times report of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates ‘analysis’ of the shortcomings of NATo troops in Afghanistan. – http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usafghan16jan16,1,163569.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-world and then reading the NY Times report of the ‘firefight’ south of Kabul – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/asia/25afghan.html .
Then maybe we should all write to our MP and to Harper and suggest strongly that they get Canadian Forces out of Afghanistan before they are ‘mistakenly’ killed by US troops.
I found both those reports interesting…particularly in view of the American “friendly fire” incidents, which have killed several NATO soldiers and a great many Afghan civilians as well as military and police personnel.
But I honestly didn’t know there really was such thing as “a counter-insurgency doctrine”.
If there is, it didn’t work very well in Vietnam, where 50,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese were slaughtered.
It hasn’t worked very well in Iraq either, where the war has gone on for five years.
And if the Americans are applying it in Afghanistan, it’s apparently not working there.
Defence Secretary Gates says there are too many airstrikes and not enough ground operations, but so far the airstrikes (all carried by the Americans and the British) have been ineffective.
Prime Minister Harper and John Manley both appear to have bought into the Gates line, by saying it’s all the fault of NATO’s Euopean members, who are reluctant to – as Gates puts it – “deepen” their involvement.
It’s a mess for sure.
If you think about the common sense of the whole thing, I don’t beleive NATO or the U.N. does anything without the strings being pulled by the U.S. They can call it what they want. NATO and U.N. sanctioned and approved doesn’t do it for me. Perhaps these countries in Nato that don’t want to follow along with Hillier’s “scumbag patrol” don’t want to be involved in slaughtering civilians. Now, I see where another Canadian General stationed in Texas is being deployed to Iraq to oversee 170,000 coalition troops. Hmmmmm, not so happy with that. We have the power to vote these people who are supposed to be working for us “OUT”.
For me, this is our excuse to get out, if we can’t bring ourselves to admit it was a huge mistake in the first place and leave. How important can it be to Germany and France if they’re not willing to do their bit? A lot of our guys have already died for France, or because of Germany. Enough’s enough, huh?