Nope, no conspiracy here
While the US forces in Afghanistan and the afghan government are mouthing the words that there is no conspiracy against US troops among their Afghan allies, known as Green-on-blue attacks, we get this link from Tman and ABC News describing a video in which they describe a video of Taliban soldiers welcoming home a perpetrator of such an attack.
“I opened fire on three Americans who were sitting together,” the man explains calmly in the video. “The reason I killed them is because they have occupied our country. They are enemies of our religion and they kill our innocent people.”
In another scene, the rogue soldier is seated outside a wooden structure, surrounded by armed insurgents, some of whose faces are blurred. Standing in a row in front are dozens of young madrassa students, who pump their fists into the air cheering “Jihad, Jihad” and “Long Live the warrior.”
Yeah, opening fire on three unarmed soldiers isn’t exactly the stuff of warriors, but whatever, Mahmood.
In the past, NATO and Afghan officials have said most of the attacks are motivated not by support for the Taliban, but for “private reasons” including grievances against local Afghan commanders, ethnic feuds, and depression. Senior U.S. officials have insisted the attacks don’t indicate a high level of Taliban infiltration into the army.
Today’s video shows otherwise, suggesting that rogue Afghan soldiers who kill their American counterparts will find strong support among insurgents. The presence of so many young children in the video also suggests a new generation of green-on-blue attackers could be waiting in the wings.
As folks here have told us, US soldiers are unarmed when working with their Afghan counterparts which tends to draw fire. I guess because the State Department is writing policy in the combat zone (remember when Karl Eickenberry, that dick, wouldn’t let security people carry their weapons in the US Embassy in Afghanistan for whatever stupid reason).
Now Mahmood shot three soldiers and got away…if those three soldiers had been armed, he might have got one before he himself was ventilated thoroughly, the possibility of which might have thwarted the whole thing in the first place.
I don’t care how “few” times the military says it happens, once is too many times. What’s the deal with having unarmed US soldiers in a war zone? This sounds like a Joe Biden strategy, right up there with ninja zombie robots.
Category: Terror War
I don’t understand why our Soldiers are unarmed. Whenever we worked with or trained the Iraqi Army we were always armed for just this reason.
Sad, but not one bit surprising.
I often wonder how I would deal with an order to disarm while in country.
It would not end well.
We saw the same thing to a much lesser extent with Jaysh al-mehdi. They would often dress as police IA or NP to terrorize the locals, and breed mistrust between the ppl and the gov’t. They damn sure didn’t have the stones to attack us.
I’m really not sure what to think here except that we need to report this more
Try being on a range when a Platoon of Kurds and a Platoon of Arabs show up at the same time to shoot. I’d like to think that me holding my M4 kept them from killing each other since they knew I was a better shot.
I left FOB Sharana in December and we were required to be carrying a weapon in condition 3, except there were no weapons allowed in the gym.
While I was just a silly sailor attached to an Army unit in Baghdad, we were only allowed to walk around Condition 4 with our rifles. I ended up buying a couple knives and one giant assed Kukari that I dubbed my “anti-rape device” anytime I was asked about it.
It’s incidents like these that make me facepalm at the fact our dudes and dudettes walk around unarmed, especially since my brother is out in Afghanistan right now.
I understand this kind of stupidity from politicians, most of whom don’t know one end of gun from the other, much less how or when to use one. But the commanders, particularly the ones that are over there? What gives?
PN, it may simply be the natural extension of the mindset which forbids fighting a war to win. These ridiculous ROE’s and waste of our resources, particularly our human resources, are just one part of that insane forumla.
Count me among those who say that when we commit to a war, let’s fight it and get out of wherever “there” is. If we are not willing to do that, could we just stay home instead of doing this death by a thousand cuts thing? Again??
Uh, seriously, our guys are unarmed? While working with armed Afghans who may or may not be loyal? Who the fuck does that make sense to?
PN #8: I understand this kind of stupidity from politicians
There it is… Politicians are likely agenda driven, while the military is supposed to be mission driven.
Aside: Although there ARE politicians in uniform the issue is the dichotomy I noted. It ain’t the ass you kick… it’s the ass you kiss.
In the very best light those commanders you mention are answerable to the politicians in this country, BTW.
Obamacare at its finest!
Lack of a nutsack on the Command to stick up for their soldiers, no other excuse, period.
If they wanna play CDR, then let them take care of soldiers first worry about career second.
I may have only been a low level NCO, but when in 06 some brain trust thought every US vehicle should never exceed 45mph and when outside the wire weapons to only be amber until fired upon, that shit didn’t fly for my squad.
I came in a PVT, and I could leave a PVT, but I refused to live with the idea I followed some PC order, issued by a perfumed prince sitting in an air conditioned admin office in the green zone and got one of my soldiers killed or wounded for lack of using the common sense God gave me.
I guess the current leaders need to read some “Hack” and boner up on leadership.
OOPS, BONE up not Boner up, sorry, my bloods boiling
MG Peter Fuller and COL Lawrence Sellin made publicly critical remarks about how asinine & backwards the state of affairs in Afghanistan was. Both were sacked and sent home. Points they made were valid, but they’re also officers in the Army and knew consequences – its just business. The 5 o’clock follies live on.
@14, “Boner Up” works for this situation.
@7, Trail Hawk is a good “utility tool”.
EVERYONE should have a side arm as a minimum when the long gun is not in reach.
“boner up on leadership”
Stu, I thought that was very appropriate. 🙂
Well our troop’s leaders should have a hard on for this asinine policy.
I think they all need to read some Hackworth.
SVP, allow an old soldier to geeze: whilst with the 1/101 ABN(Sep) and the 3/82 ABN(Sep)in the garden spot of the A-Shau Valley near Hue-Phu Bai after Tet, I slept well because I was among fellow Troopers. No hooch maids. Ok, there was the Chu Hoi (aka former VC that had, supposedly, seen the light) barber. But, there was always Trooper with a locked and loaded M16/1911 watching the haircut. Seriously.
Then they moved the BDE to Tan Son Nhut Air Base to stop rockets. There, the REMF’s were repulsed by our dirty, mortar’d/rocketed, sandbagged vehicles and our nasty jungle fatigues that were lacking AR 670-1 requirements. Even though we were stopping the rockets.
And, the REMF’s would not let us enter their PX/BX Mecca with weapons! Even if our mission was to stop the rockets. Sorry, we don’t surrender weapons. Fights ensued.
It also did not help that the BDE CP was co-located in the mortuary compound. Imagine having meals with those poor guys and gals. They saw it all, in the worst way, and, IMHO, are hero’s for living through that horror. They dealt with it as best they could. Geographically, they were REMF’s, but psychologically, they were John Wayne’s. Their family and children should hold them in reverence for their service.
I could go on…those days were a precursor to what you young whipper snappers have gone through. When I was in my M151 (jeep) in the Saigon AOR I stayed scared because was the nice kid on a moped going to hand my jeep a grenade? Should I shoot him/her? In the A-Shau, that would not happen. Seems that nothing has changed: American troops will almost always err on the side that gets them in harms way. End Geez. (And, I can provide DD214 creds…this is a tough crowd.)
I run PSD over here for a support command. My Marines are all infantrymen, meaning we are naturally aggressive and cocky, just the way we are. Majority of the sites our engineers visit are ANA/ANP compounds. When we arrive we go into our walking security formations while staying completely geared up. We have had multiple field grade officers come storming up to us and demand that we drop our gear and not walk around with rifles since it, “is intimidating and insulting to our Afghan partners”. Well no shit it is intimidating, that is the while point. The number one threat we deal with over here in my AO is green on blue. People are idiots.
I am currently here at FOB Sharana (BOG in April) and it was put out to us that condition 3 was the regulation for in country.
I have no clue why we have people unarmed, except possibly to appease some funbletard handwringer who needs a cluebat shoved straight up their 4th point of contact.
Could someone explain to me the conditions 1,2,3,4 or whatever numbers they are? I was in Iraq not Afghanistan and we used green, amber, red.
Conditions 1,2,3,4 are a Marine/Navy thing, same as your color status just worded different.
Closed Bolt
Condition 1: Round in chamber, bolt forward, magazine inserted, weapon on safe, ejection port cover closed.
Condition 2: Applies to single action weapons
Condition 3: Chamber empty, bolt forward, magazine inserted, safety on, ejection port cover closed
Condition 4: Chamber empty, bolt forward, no magazine inserted, safety on, ejection port cover closed
Open Bolt
Condition 1: Rounds on feed tray, feed tray cover closed, bolt to the rear, weapon on safe
Condition 2: Does not apply
Condition 3: Rounds on feed tray, feed tray cover closed, bolt forward, weapon on fire
Condition 4: No rounds on feed tray, feed tray cover closed, bolt forward, weapon on fire
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