Oh, so now it’s a “crisis”

Stars & Stripes reports that Command Sgt. Maj. Bill Johnson, who according to his Facebook page is the command sergeant major for V Corps and the senior enlisted leader for the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command took to talking to the troops about the murders committed by our Afghan allies over the last several months;

The so-called guardian angel position at the Kandahar base was the first thing soldiers here wanted Johnson to see on his tour of southern bases, and it became a theme of his trip.

Johnson said that while the shootings have forced international forces to make adjustments, his Afghan counterparts have been equally aggressive in trying to stem the tide, noting that more Afghans have been killed by their comrades than internationals killed in so-called green-on-blue attacks.

“It’s not only dangerous for us, it’s dangerous for the Afghans,” he said.

The first thing I’d do if I was in CSM Johnson’s position is change the stupid “guardian angels” name. I’d change it to “the hair-trigger ninja zombie dark angels of avenging and immediate death” or something scary. Guardian Angels makes me think of those fruits in New York City with raspberry berets. The Afghans need to know we’re serious about this shit. Maybe they should pop off a few rounds every couple of minutes to remind the “allies” that they’re watching. And wear hockey masks.

While insurgent infiltration is suspected in some of these attacks, more are blamed on cultural misunderstandings and arguments, which has shone a spotlight on lacking cultural education available to most troops. Learning the ways of a country as different as Afghanistan is a steep learning curve for American troops, Johnson said, but he’s confident that new training programs are improving cultural understanding.

“It’s a lot to learn for a young soldier coming into the Army, never been out of Hometown, USA,” Johnson said.

Would the good sergeant major like to explain to us what the troops have done to our allies that they deserve a death sentence for it?

“I think we’re starting to lose a little ground back in the U.S., but I think a lot of that comes from bad publicity,” he said.

Is that what scores of needless deaths are…bad publicity? It’s only been a few weeks that CSM Johnson and his commander decided to allow troops in a combat zone to be armed around their “partners”, but bad publicity is to blame. It’s been two weeks since the White House called the cowardly murders “negligible” in the Grand Scheme of Things, but now, today, it’s a crisis. So much for publicity.

It just reinforces that which I already knew. A lot of really good NCOs go to the Sergeant Major Academy and get their brains sucked out. It gets replaced with an inert spongy material.

Category: Terror War