US to blame because Afghans are morons
The Washington Post in an article entitled “Next to U.S. firing range in Afghanistan, a village of victims” blames the US forces at Bagram Air Base for idiot local villagers near the base who send their children into an impact area to salvage shrapnel and expended brass cartridges and the children end up mangled or otherwise injured.
Apparently, not all of the 40mm grenades which are supposed to detonate on impact after they’re fired from the soldiers’ rifles explode in the soft sand and children scrounging for metal to “to trade for an ice cream cone”. Of course, that phrase is meant to tug at your heart strings.
The Post and Afghans complain that there is no fence around the impact area and that the warning signs are all written in English and not Pashto that the locals understand. The Post also complains that locals are poor and and have no other way to earn a living except by salvaging metal from the impact areas. So what are they going to do for a living after the Americans leave? And why is it just kids who are out there scrounging around through the explosives?
And is a fence really going to protect against stupidity like this;
Sometimes, the boys step on a grenade unintentionally. Sometimes, they pick up one, thinking that it’s an empty shell.
That’s how Khaili Jan, 10, lost both of his legs last year. His father had told him to stay away from the grenades and rockets, but the boy knew the shells of larger explosives were worth much more than small bits of shrapnel. When he saw a grenade that appeared to have detonated, he gave it a kick to get a better look, and the egg-size ordnance exploded.
Now, the boy has two plastic prosthetic legs and crutches that sink into the sand when he walks through the desert.
“What can he do now?” his father, Amir Jan, asked. “Nothing. He can just sit.”
Each morning Khaili Jan’s brothers head back to the range where their brother was nearly killed, accompanied by a herd of sheep or towing an empty bag to collect shrapnel. The brothers and fathers of Rahman and Mohammed have already returned to the range, as well.
They know that it’s an impact area, they have the example of their legless brother to prove it, yet, there they are still trolling the area for metal and explosives. A fence to protect people that stupid would last about ten seconds.
Category: Media, Terror War
Well, Jonn, you have to admit that the alternate title, “Next to US Firing Range in Afghanistan, A Village of Idiots” wouldn’t be PC.
Accurate, perhaps – but not PC.
Those idiots would most likely steal the damn fence.
Signs not written in Pashto? That’s interesting, because all the “Danger, Mines” signs I saw on Bagram put there to protect people from the minefields left behind by the Soviets were written in both English and Pashto. I’m having a hard time believing we wouldn’t continue to put up signs in both languages around new dangers. The signs probably also contain a graphic warning to protect the illiterate. There’s no helping the terminally stupid or careless, however.
Ah well, as the Afghans themselves would say, “insha’Allah!”
Even if the signs were written in Pashto, Afghanistan has a 28% literacy rate and I doubt people living next to a firing range have the means to be educated enough to read. This whole thing is just natural selection at work.
Guys, it’s the WaPo and they’re just as bad as the HoPuff…I mean HuffPo. Every bad thing hat happens in the world is America’s fault. Both rags, and many others, blame us for the “border buddy’s” (illegal immigrants) dieing in the desert while crossing the border illegally here in Arizona. It’s not Mexico’s fault for allowing a corrupt system that doesn’t allow the underclass to advance themselves and even published a pamphlet with tips on how to Cross illegally, it’s not the “coyote’s” fault for exploiting their own people nor is it the individual’s fault for not following the legal procedures to come to my country legally and honestly.
Until these so called reporters and editors have served a tour, they can all kiss my big brown butt right where it puckers!
My question is who are these kids selling the unexploded rounds to. I can think of only a few groups who would have an interest in them.
Fat lot of good a fence would do since my friends FAPed out to base security were always having to chase off locals trying to dismantle and steal the parts.
How would signs in Pashto matter since most Afghans are illiterate? It’s remarkable how well they understand the meaning of the signs attached to convoy vehicles telling them to stay back. The French were responsible for flightline security at KAF, and had several signs posted warning people not to trespass. Even if they didn’t include English I most certainly never would have mistaken the picture of a snarling German Shepherd’s head for anything other than ‘Trespassers Will Be Fed To The Dog From The Sandlot’
Also, trading scrap metal for ice cream cones? I have almost two years of accumulated deployment time in Afghanistan, but never once saw a Good Humor truck. Did they recently expand their operations?
So, riddle me this… If over half the fucking population cannot read, how the fuck are we supposed to put signs up to warn them???? Seriously, the retardation in the Post really pisses me off sometimes! And that kid on A18, the one who blew his own forearm off? Probably an RKG33 or Russian grenade, not one of ours. Ours are more strictly controlled…
So riddle me this batman: If the father had told his kid not to go to the range to pick up ordnance, er, brass, why, after one of his sons lost his legs, is he returning with the other kids?
And since the loss of two legs by one kid hasn’t warned him not to send the other kids there, does the WaPo think a sign in a language he speaks, but probably doesn’t read, or a fence for that matter, will stop him from sending his other sons there?
Yeah, the father thinks he’ll get some money for the kid’s legs from Uncle Sam. The kids pick up brass all the time there. The Afghans lie as often as they breathe, but I do expect the WaPo to be smart enough to catch it when the lies are in their same article, even though they have a political agenda.
Even if the signs were written in Pashto, most of them can’t read the language anyways…and they would most likely take apart the fence and sell it.
Why exactly is it our fault that the Russians left the country riddled with landmines?
Ice Cream? There’s fucking ice cream there now? I was gypped! We didn’t get any, aside from thanksgiving in 2004-2005!!!!
Waaah!! It’d be our fault if we brought electricity and they stick their fingers in the outlet, too. (Oh, well, at least the F-tarded WaPo didn’t blame Bush.)
Anon, it would never happen since they would have stolen the wiring out of the power lines long before any electricity could get to the socket they probably also taken as well.
Afghan kids trade brass for ice cream cones?
They are penniless and underfed yet they are eating ice cream?
This same kind of crap happened at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Range in Kazakhstan. The locals would ignore all of the warning signs and fences and send their kids in to get the copper wire after the underground test blasts. When their kids started growing extra limbs they got all pissed off and screamed “tragedy” but the real tragedy was the parents’ stupidity.
You don’t blame a lake for a drowning, you blame the idiots that threw their kids into the lake in the first place.
[…] toon is, in part, a delayed response to a blog post over at This ain’t Hell about a Washington Post story from earlier this year. We’ve heard a few first-hand accounts […]
Sounds like a CLEAR example of the Darwin Effect. Give it a few more months, there won’t be any kids left to blow up, and very likely no next generation of idiots.
Looks like a win-win to me. . .
Want Peace in Afghanistan? Kill all the males above puberty. Send all the women to new husbands in China, where they have a severe female shortage. Repopulate Afghanistan with a civilized people who respect the rule of law and value education and industriousness.
Sorry, not PC, but that what it’s gonna take. The alternative is to hermetically seal the place and let them stew in their Islamic juices. . . .
“Each morning Khaili Jan’s brothers head back to the range where their brother was nearly killed, accompanied by a herd of sheep or towing an empty bag to collect shrapnel.”
Solution: Train the sheep to collect the shrapnel!
@20 The sheep are too sharp to fall for that after the first one gets popped….it doesn’t say much for your “culture” when the herd animals have more sense than the herders…