Thursday - November 05, 2009

A singular and sad day for Brit military literally stabbed in the back. Is it time to go?

A day or two ago posted an article on the death of a bomb disposal soldier who was on his last days tour.  He was btw, a local fellow from our area, and so naturally there’s a bit more news and background on him.

Well, yesterday a group of Brit soldiers were murdered in an attack by what authorities are saying was a Taliban mole.  They were unarmed at the time having just returned from a patrol and took off their flak jackets and helmets and gathered for cold drinks and tea in what should have been a safe compound.

Not available on line and even if it were, are the photos and description of exactly what and how it happened have had a great impact in hard copy that just can’t be reproduced on line.

No point in my relating the entire story.  It’s all here in these two articles.  The question I have is, are we failing?  Are we, that is America and England and what few allies we may have, spitting into the wind?  Are we trying to seriously nation build and create a democracy in a place that will NEVER be ready or accepting of such notions?  And btw ...  just what sort of ‘democracy’ are we trying to implant?  Are we going to teach them pc as well? 

Look, I am not a military strategist.  I see history and I see results.  I might respect the fighting ability of the foe or at least try not to underestimate their ability to hit back in ways that work for them.  But I don’t understand how we’re making things safer for the west by fighting tribes in some god forsaken shit hole populated by life forms that are barely human.  If we need to destroy them fine. Then why can’t we just nuke the whole area?  We killed an awful lot of innocent people in WW2 without wanting to.  But we damn well won a war we HAD to win.  Them or us, and them lost! Period.

Surely with tighter border controls (the will has to be there) and increased security and a shoot to kill policy by security services, surely we can avoid terrorist attacks on our soil without spending lives in Afghanistan.  ????  I’m not saying I’m correct in that, but I am asking the question.

Of course, safeguarding our homeland would mean killing (literally) off the traitors and 5th columnists among us.  Until that’s seen to people, we’re just spinning our wheels and wasting good young lives.

Those Brit soldiers that were killed were done in by someone trusted by them. He was a policeman, as I understand it.  Brits have been training the police there as have we (USA).  These (from all I have read here) are not the most trustworthy ppl on the planet.  They are easily bribed and loyalty shifts from one paymaster to another with some frequency.  Ppl in that part of the world have something approaching ‘loyalty’ but it’s to the tribe they come from. Not the govt. they currently work for.

On the one hand, pulling out of Afghanistan sends a message to terrorists everywhere.  We’ll go away if you do this sort of thing a lot.
On the other hand, is that place or its life forms worth the price?  Will we gain anything long term to make it worthwhile?  If we did nuke em, who’d oppose us except our own 5th col.? Yeah, the euros would jump up and down and come up with some kind of anti American slogan. Scew em. Challenge them to a war and see how they stand. 

Patrick Cockburn: Deaths bring whole Afghan strategy into question

Analysis

Thursday, 5 November 2009

I was in an office in Kabul this summer being lectured by a mid-ranking official about the successful work of the government. “Completely off the record, what do you really think of this government?” I asked him, not expecting a very interesting reply.

“So long as you promise not to reveal my identity, I can tell you that this government is made up of killers and crooks,” answered the official with scarcely a pause. He gave some examples of government-inspired killings and corruption.

In this tradition of carefully calculated treachery, the shooting dead of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman operating with them is hardly surprising. Afghan leaders have long been notorious for concealing their true loyalties and changing sides. But the potential political consequences are very serious. The US and British strategy to build up the Afghan security forces to as many as 400,000 may prove impossible because the state is too weak and too poor and commands the loyalty of too few Afghans.

The reputation of Afghans for always defeating their enemies is based in part on the speed with which they join the winner. The Taliban advances in the 1990s were notable less for military victories than local warlords defecting to them after receiving a large bribe. In the US war to overthrow the Taliban in 2001, the same process went into reverse as the CIA bought off the same warlords who then sent their men home without a fight.

Nor is this the first time that Western forces have been turned on by their Afghan colleagues. In Kunduz province north of Kabul earlier this summer, a policeman shot eight of his colleagues and turned his police post over to the Taliban. An American military trainer was shot and wounded by one of the men he was training when he drank water in front of them when they were fasting during Ramadan.

The shaky loyalty of the Afghan police and, to a lesser extent, the army to their own government undermines US and British plans to hold the line against the Taliban while a strong local security force is built up. US political leaders speak of a force of 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police to be trained in the next few years. In reality, though, nobody knows the current size of the Afghan security forces.

The army is supposedly 90,000 strong, but this figure may be grossly over-stated. “My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist,” writes Ann Jones, an American specialist on Afghanistan. “I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA [Afghan National Army] training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist under a different name.”

Even so, the reputation of the army among ordinary Afghans is much better than that of the police. Some of these are paid a pittance for a very dangerous job. They are often stationed in vulnerable outposts and checkpoints. Their training is frequently almost non-existent. Before the presidential election in August, policemen being trained by a US security firm who had been receiving eight weeks’ training saw this reduced to three weeks, so they could be sent to guard polling stations in southern Afghanistan.

More senior policemen can make money through aiding drug smugglers. General Aminullah Amarkhail, the former head of security at Kabul airport, who was sacked for his success in arresting heroin smugglers, says that the profits are such that jobs are bought and sold for large sums. “You have to pay $10,000 [£6,000] in bribes to get a job as a district police chief,” he says, “and up to $150,000 to get a job as chief of police anywhere on the border – because there you can make a lot of money.”

SOURCE

British soldiers murdered in Afghanistan by Taliban assassin: Killer back with us and safe, say insurgents

By DAVID WILLIAMS, IAN DRURY and LIZ HAZELTON
Last updated at 1:02 PM on 05th November 2009
Five British soldiers killed in Afghan attack named by MoD

UN announces temporary withdrawal of 600 staff due to security concerns
Manhunt continues for killer who fled on motorbike in wake of shooting

Taliban insurgents today claimed that the Afghan policeman who murdered five British soldiers was back with them and ‘safe’.

The assassin, identified as a man called Gulbaddin, had fled the scene of slaughter on a motorbike after the attack on Tuesday.
But despite a desperate search involving British special forces, MI6 officers and surveillance drones there has been no trace of him since.

If true, the Taliban’s claim would confirm suspicions Gulbaddin fled the area using well-trod drugs smuggling routes established by insurgents.
Back in Britain, Gordon Brown is under mounting pressure to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in the wake of the attack.

As government policy on the war-torn region was savaged by all sides, Downing Street announced that the Prime Minister would make a ‘major speech’ on the issue tomorrow.

There was no immediate information about its contents but sources do not believe it signals any change in policy.
Two former Labour ministers and a series of bereaved families have called for an end to the UK’s military involvement after the soldiers were cut down in a hail of machine gun fire.

Six others were seriously injured in the attack by a man they trusted as they relaxed and drank tea in a compound.

Former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle declared ‘enough is enough’, adding: ‘It is time we should bring our troops home from what is an impossible task.’

COMPLETE STORY HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/05/2009 at 08:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists • UK • War On Terror • War-Stories •  
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