Title: Truth, lies and Afghanistan Source:
armedforcesjournal.com URL Source:http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030 Published:Feb 18, 2012 Author:LT. COL. DANIEL L. DAVIS Post Date:2012-03-18 21:01:37 by GreyLmist Keywords:Afghanistan, Hashish Army, Taliban haystack, strawman Bales of hay Views:114 Comments:8
Excerpt 1: In January 2011, I made my first trip into the mountains of Kunar province near the Pakistan border to visit the troops of 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry. On a patrol to the northernmost U.S. position in eastern Afghanistan, we arrived at an Afghan National Police (ANP) station that had reported being attacked by the Taliban 2½ hours earlier.
Through the interpreter, I asked the police captain where the attack had originated, and he pointed to the side of a nearby mountain.
“What are your normal procedures in situations like these?” I asked. “Do you form up a squad and go after them? Do you periodically send out harassing patrols? What do you do?”
As the interpreter conveyed my questions, the captain’s head wheeled around, looking first at the interpreter and turning to me with an incredulous expression. Then he laughed.
“No! We don’t go after them,” he said. “That would be dangerous!”
According to the cavalry troopers, the Afghan policemen rarely leave the cover of the checkpoints. In that part of the province, the Taliban literally run free.
In June, I was in the Zharay district of Kandahar province, returning to a base from a dismounted patrol. Gunshots were audible as the Taliban attacked a U.S. checkpoint about one mile away.
As I entered the unit’s command post, the commander and his staff were watching a live video feed of the battle. Two ANP vehicles were blocking the main road leading to the site of the attack. The fire was coming from behind a haystack. We watched as two Afghan men emerged, mounted a motorcycle and began moving toward the Afghan policemen in their vehicles.
The U.S. commander turned around and told the Afghan radio operator to make sure the policemen halted the men. The radio operator shouted into the radio repeatedly, but got no answer.
On the screen, we watched as the two men slowly motored past the ANP vehicles. The policemen neither got out to stop the two men nor answered the radio — until the motorcycle was out of sight.
Excerpt 2: On Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the infamous attack on the U.S., I visited another unit in Kunar province, this one near the town of Asmar. I talked with the local official who served as the cultural adviser to the U.S. commander. Here’s how the conversation went:
Davis: “Here you have many units of the Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF]. Will they be able to hold out against the Taliban when U.S. troops leave this area?”
Adviser: “No. They are definitely not capable. Already all across this region [many elements of] the security forces have made deals with the Taliban. [The ANSF] won’t shoot at the Taliban, and the Taliban won’t shoot them.
“Also, when a Taliban member is arrested, he is soon released with no action taken against him. So when the Taliban returns [when the Americans leave after 2014], so too go the jobs, especially for everyone like me who has worked with the coalition.
“Recently, I got a cellphone call from a Talib who had captured a friend of mine. While I could hear, he began to beat him, telling me I’d better quit working for the Americans. I could hear my friend crying out in pain. [The Talib] said the next time they would kidnap my sons and do the same to them. Because of the direct threats, I’ve had to take my children out of school just to keep them safe.
“And last night, right on that mountain there [he pointed to a ridge overlooking the U.S. base, about 700 meters distant], a member of the ANP was murdered. The Taliban came and called him out, kidnapped him in front of his parents, and took him away and murdered him. He was a member of the ANP from another province and had come back to visit his parents. He was only 27 years old. The people are not safe anywhere.”
That murder took place within view of the U.S. base, a post nominally responsible for the security of an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Imagine how insecure the population is beyond visual range. And yet that conversation was representative of what I saw in many regions of Afghanistan.
In all of the places I visited, the tactical situation was bad to abysmal. If the events I have described — and many, many more I could mention — had been in the first year of war, or even the third or fourth, one might be willing to believe that Afghanistan was just a hard fight, and we should stick it out. Yet these incidents all happened in the 10th year of war.
As the numbers depicting casualties and enemy violence indicate the absence of progress, so too did my observations of the tactical situation all over Afghanistan.
“Recently, I got a cellphone call from a Talib who had captured a friend of mine. While I could hear, he began to beat him, telling me I’d better quit working for the Americans. I could hear my friend crying out in pain. [The Talib] said the next time they would kidnap my sons and do the same to them. Because of the direct threats, I’ve had to take my children out of school just to keep them safe.
“And last night, right on that mountain there [he pointed to a ridge overlooking the U.S. base, about 700 meters distant], a member of the ANP was murdered. The Taliban came and called him out, kidnapped him in front of his parents, and took him away and murdered him. He was a member of the ANP from another province and had come back to visit his parents. He was only 27 years old. The people are not safe anywhere.”
That murder took place within view of the U.S. base,
“I don’t know why they killed them,” said Mr. Samad, a short, feeble man with a white beard and white turban, as he struggled in an interview to come to terms with the loss of his wife, four daughters between the ages of 2 and 6, four sons between 8 and 12, and two other relatives. [sic] unlike other displaced villagers who stayed in the city of Kandahar, about 15 miles away, and other places around the troubled province, Mr. Samad listened to the urgings of the provincial governor and the Afghan Army. They had encouraged residents to return and reassured them that American forces would protect them. Back in his village, a collection of a few houses known as Najibian, Mr. Samad and his family moved into a neighbor’s house [sic] It was against this background that, United States officials said, the soldier left the American base and walked south about a mile [My note: with a partial foot -- and fuel] to Mr. Samad’s village.Mr. Samad and his teenage son survived because they had been visiting the nearby town of Spinbaldak. Afterward, the soldier circled back north around the base to another village, where he attacked the home of Hajji-Sayed Jan, 45, a poor laborer who had fled to Kandahar city three times during the years of fighting but who had brought his family back because he could not afford to live in the city, villagers said. He was in Kandahar for the evening and so survived, but his wife, nephew, grandson and brother were killed. Further on in the same village, the soldier entered a home and fatally shot Muhammad Dawoud, 55, a farmer, when he emerged from a room; his wife and children escaped to a neighbor’s house.
Initial reports said that Sgt Bales simply walked to the villages, which were located about 500 (546 yds) from the military base in Panjwai district.
But local journalists say that the villages of Najeeban and Alkozai are about 5- 7km (3-4 miles) apart. This immediately raises questions about accounts which said he completed his deadly circuit on foot.
An Afghan guard at the Nato base told the BBC that Sgt Bales left the base twice. He returned at 00:30 local time (20:00 GMT) after the first trip out and was out between 02:00 and 04:00 for the second trip.
Panjwai is the birthplace of the Taliban movement and has traditionally been a stronghold of theirs.[1] [sic] According to official reports, a heavily armed American soldier left combat outpost Camp Belamby at 3:00 a.m. local time wearing night vision goggles.[24][25] The soldier was wearing traditional Afghan clothing over his ISAF fatigues.[26][27][sic] Afghan forces spotted him leaving his outpost before the massacre [sic] The surveillance video from the base reportedly shows "the soldier walking up to his base covered in a traditional Afghan shawl. The soldier removes the shawl and lays his weapon on the ground, then raises his arms in surrender." [27] The video has not been released to the public.
Although there is reportedly video of the accused returning to the base, evidently there's none of him leaving. Only Afghan forces claim to have seen him leave the base and leave more than once -- claim to somehow have known it was him dressed as an Afghan in night goggles but did nothing like contact someone in command to get clearance for him to leave alone -- especially if he was drunk, as the story has morphed by claims of alleged village-witnesses. Odd too that no one at the base reported hearing any gunfire or seeing any fires in the villages or doing any forensic checks at all on the supposed attack ammo. At 2:41 in the video below, Afghans are shown digging through ashes in a room with no visible fire and smoke damage to the interior to account for the alleged burnpile and ammo is seen to be collected but who has it and where?
Comment at the veteranstoday.com article by Debbie Menon: "AS I have said many times this could be cleared up in a few hours! simply collect the spent ammunition and subject it to simple police Ballistic examination!"
In this video, Gordon Duff of Veterans Today presents a good analysis of why the story we've been told about this is bunk. Then he absurdly avoids the simple question and far more likely probablility that Afghans are framing the U.S. for crimes by Afghans, or by Taliban intimidators of the Afghan villagers who could be coercing them to accuse the U.S., and then he proceeds to paint it with the stain of a large-scale, My Lai styled, authorized mission -- seemingly just because he'd rather do that and endanger more lives than question the Afghan version. [Edited last sentence]
All Troops home from Afghanistan now. Karzai and company can hire private contractors for security and training or start their own businesses to do that.
A sensible Comment at this activistpost.com punditry on the topic:
After reading the full story, I am fairly certain this is a manufactured event. What does it accomplish? Another instance of supposed "lone wolf" gunman and a reminder that veterans are damaged goods. I think veterans are more likely to wake up so these kinds of incidents keep them neatly contained in fear of being called broken from war.
If enough of us wake up and see the fakery we can stop it. The truth is, we can make this place we live a wonderful thing. We first have to stop the evil doers. The way to do that is call them out.
MIRWAIS KHAN KANDAHAR, Afghanistan— The Associated Press Published Sunday, Mar. 25, 2012 8:46AM EDT Last updated Sunday, Mar. 25, 2012 9:38AM EDT
The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday.
The families of the dead received the money Saturday at the governor's office, said Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai. Each wounded person received $11,000 Lalai said. Community elder Jan Agha confirmed the same figures.
They were told that the money came from U.S. President Barack Obama, Mr. Lalai said.
A U.S. official confirmed that compensation had been paid but declined to discuss exact amounts [sic]
A spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces declined to confirm or deny the payments [sic]
It was not immediately clear how much money had been paid out in all. Afghan officials and villagers have counted 16 dead — 12 in the village of Balandi and four in neighboring Alkozai — and six wounded. The U.S. military has charged Sgt. Bales with 17 murders without explaining the discrepancy.
The 38-year-old soldier is accused of using his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, to kill four men, four women, two boys and seven girls, then burning some of the bodies. The ages of the children were not disclosed in the charge sheet.
The families had previously received smaller compensation payments from Afghan officials.
Also Sunday, officials said that a bomb exploded in the south of the country as a foot patrol of Afghan and NATO forces was passing by the previous day, killing nine Afghans and one international service member.
NATO reported earlier Sunday that one of its service members was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Saturday but did not provide additional details. It was not clear if this referred to the same incident, [sic]
There has been no known forensic evidence investigation, no trial indicating Bales or any others of our Military were involved in this, even the alleged victims info keeps morphing in the tellings and amounts to the only supposed evidence at all besides pictures that show the alleged murders by Bales couldn't have happened as they say. Military personnel are being killed, probably in retaliation for these unproven allegations and we are being charged with millions for what could be nothing but lies. Is everybody on the Kangaroo Court of Public Opinion bandwagon applauding themselves for sanctimoniously fueling the tensions with no actual evidence like they're immune from being charged and condemed without any?