Green-on-blue attacks continue
The other day, on Friday, we wrote that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told us that the specter of “green-on-blue” insider attacks has dissipated because the Afghan government had finally taken the issue seriously. Tman sends us a link to an Associated Press article which reports that not everyone has taken the issue as seriously as we had hoped.
The international coalition in Afghanistan said earlier Sunday that one of its service members was killed in a suspected insider attack by Afghan forces on Saturday. A U.S. official said that the dead service member was American. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of the dead had not yet been formally announced.
The Americans had suspended “partnered operations” for little more than a week to correct the problem which was causing more than 10% of US casualties this year and the really amazing part of the reinstitution of joint operations was that we were expected to believe that the problem was rectified in that short period of time.
Category: Terror War
Perhaps Chairman Marty would like to lead an Afghan-only patrol on a search and destroy mission for copies of that video that triggered the consulate and embassy attacks.
…Sadly, this is something that hasn’t changed since my dad was in the ’50s USMC or since my own service ended in the USAF fifteen years ago:
1. A problem is identified that will require a drastic, fundamental change in the way operations are handled in order to correct said problem.
2) Leadership is unwilling/unable to even address, much less correct, said problem, usually due to the possibility that coming up with a solution may suggest that they were less than infallible in the first place.
3) Leadership therefore issues a directive that by order of whatever higher headquarters are involved, the problem no longer exists.
4) Leadership then sits down to work on changing the uniform again until the problem reoccurs, usually within 24 to 72 hours and in a remarkably embarrassing context.
Mike