A pair of Afghan soldiers attacked a group of NATO troops outside of a base today. None of the NATO soldiers were killed but one of the attackers was. The other attacker was reportedly captured.
The Taliban took credit for the attack, saying one of the attackers had been in contact with them before the shooting. It is the 21st “green-on-blue” attack of 2012, and the second of this week, after a Tuesday attack saw one US soldier slain.
The nationality of the soldiers attacked today in the Laghman Province was not released, but NATO officials said there were no fatalities. They declined to comment on if anyone was wounded.
27 NATO soldiers have been killed in such incidents so far this year, the most in any single year yet. Several of the incidents involved Taliban infiltrators, but many were also the results of arguments between Afghans and occupation forces.
SEE: Unfriendly Fire http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/u….
How the Taliban mastered the operational art of modern war
By William S. Lind • June 27, 2012
Here are a few excerps:
"What passes for NATO’s strategy is to train sufficient Afghan forces to hold off the Taliban once we pull out. The Taliban’s response has been to have men in Afghan uniform— many of whom actually are Afghan government soldiers or police—turn their guns on their NATO advisers. That is a fatal blow against our strategy because it makes the training mission impossible. Behold operational art in Fourth Generation war."
"The Taliban know this technique is operational, not just tactical. They can be expected to put all their effort into it. What counter do we have? Just order our troops to pretend it is not happening—to keep trusting their Afghan counterparts. That order, if enforced, will put our soldiers in such an untenable position that morale will collapse."
"The greatest intellectual challenge in Fourth Generation war—war against opponents that are not states—is how to fight it at the operational level. NATO in Afghanistan, like the Soviets three decades ago, has been unable to solve that riddle. But the Taliban appears to have done so."
"So powerful is this taste of Taliban operational art that Washington may fear the example it sets. During a recent visit by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to Afghanistan, no American soldiers were allowed to get near him with loaded weapons. Might the Pentagon be worried that our own troops could learn from the Taliban? Were I an American soldier who had been told to hand over or unload his weapon before approaching Secretary Panetta, I would certainly have read it that way.
Wonderful strategy. Obama sends more troops to Afghanistan so he can look tough. Then after a few months, he starts pulling them out so he can say we have won and are turning the war over to the "Afghans" (actually, since the Taliban are also Afghans, there may be more truth to this than he imagines). Nothing changes except that more people are dead.
Just yesterday they killed some Amerikan troops and tonight once again I watched the nightly propaganda…er…sorry…nightly news and for the second night in a row not a peep out of little Brian Williams about these attacks. Heck, he even had old Tom Lockjaw on and they were talking about some Olympic fluff piece….geez!
When you are being paid millions to sit in front of a camera you say what you are told with a smile on your face! Just ask little Brian Williams!
US–get out of Afghanistan and all other soverign nations–NOW
Get out…???? Get out…. You say….??? Us the Exceptional and chosen…??? US, the ones doing G-d's Werk….????? Who are you…??? When did G-d give YOU any say in what WE do…?????
But seriously MIKE the only way this will end is when the dollar collapses……. and we can no longer afford to wage endless war for you know who and her oleaginous co-conspirators among others….
Remember VIETNAM, Laos and Cambodia and the secret bombing of those places. Remember “Vietnamization”…?? It's the same now with drones instead of B-52s… making an ever wider circle of new enemies for the endless war… Remember Vietnamizatiuon…..????
“[ The plan was to encourage the South Vietnamese to take more responsibility for fighting the war. It was hoped that this policy would eventually enable the United States to withdraw gradually all their soldiers from Vietnam. To increase the size of the ARVN, a mobilisation law was passed that called up into the army all men in South Vietnam aged between seventeen and forty-three"]
Trying to run a puppet led (occupation) army of conscripted natives may look good on paper, but there are peer dynamics which make such policies unwerkable and even dangerous…. as these “green-on-blue” attack show..!! It is telling decision that the our leaders turn to the same solution they attempted unsuccessfully to rescue their ultimate failure and loss in their Vietnam debacle-cum-rout. Mr. Lind points out the [operational?] liabilities of “Afghanization” but just think what sort of intellectual fecklessness it illustrates… to even contemplate the exact same policy that cost so dear in our last big military disaster.. Is it that America can’t learn from the past..??
As our government enacts ever expanding utilization of the military to any and all aspects of life at home and throughout the entire world…. it risks a Cuba outcome… All cops and soldiers producing nothing but the enforcement of diktats of the out of touch corrupt leader**** of the husk of what was once a productive and prosperous country………. Collapse has become the only hope, now that "O" has chosen the HOPELESS Neocon/ Bush doctrine to squander our future on dreams of full spectrum domination of the entire planet and do so with fiat paper money………
Three more US troops were killed today by an Afghan soldier.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/08…