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Afghan Treachery and Visionless Strategy Continue to Kill American War Fighters!
by JOHN BERNARD
July 10, 2012
The Daily Mirror ran a story about the increased angst in the ranks of Britain's forces over new orders that require British forces to be fired upon before engaging the enemy in Afghanistan. While these ROE are not new to the US and ISAF forces in general, the edict is being received by Britain's armed forces as another oppressive act permitting a greater level of danger for them in the interest of safeguarding "innocent" Afghan civilians.
This debate is not new for either the Brits or Americans but with each new edict comes a new round of unnecessary friendly deaths at the hands of the Taliban and our new "allies", the Afghan Army and Police. As the numbers of ISAF and NATO casualties increase, there is ever growing evidence of the numbing of the minds of those entrusted with the leadership of these forces.
The number of deaths attributed to treachery among the ANA and ANP aimed at ISAF and NATO forces should indicate that efforts to minimize the damage caused to civilians by heavily restricting our forces simply isn't working. If this kind of behavior was occurring in this country and growing at the same rate, the career health hand-wringers would be declaring an epidemic! Unfortunately, we will be seeing more of these attacks because there is no sign that either the DOD, Pentagon or the civilian leadership in DC are willing to change tactics and loosen the ROE in response to what is clearly an uptick in anti-American and ISAF sentiment.
This report about the moral and real world effects of these continuingly tightening ROE came just a day before reports of two more "trusted" Afghan's opening fire on their British and American "counterparts". In the first incident which occurred, ironically, just one day after the scathing Mirror report, three British Soldiers were killed and the second occurring in Kabul, today yielding another five American Soldiers wounded. Concerned Americans are asking why this is happening and the answer is really very simple.
It has been 10 years since we first invaded Afghanistan driving the Taliban from power and leaving Al Qaida in disarray, forcing them to seek shelter in the mountains around Tora Bora and across the border in Pakistan. We spent the next few years simply holding ground via COP's and FOB's because we had shifted focus to Iraq. A discussion about the value of that decision can be held in another venue and another time but what is certain is that during the Iraq War years, we lost focus in Afghanistan.
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