“We’ve been watching with deep concern these so-called green-on-blue attacks, where you have Afghan individuals, some of whom are actually enrolled in the Afghan military, … attacking coalition forces,” Obama said.
There have been 32 insider attacks so far this year involving 36 shooters that have led to 40 coalition deaths, just over half of them Americans. Some 69 coalition troops have been wounded. That’s a sharp increase from 2011, when 35 coalition troops killed, 24 of whom were U.S. troops during the year …
“I’ll be reaching out to President Karzai as well because we’ve got to make sure that we’re on top of this,” Obama said …
[Last] week, the Pentagon said only about 11 percent of so-called “insider attacks” by Afghans against NATO troops this year were due to Taliban infiltration, with the vast majority due to other motives, including personal grudges. Why there would be a sudden increase in personal grudges and other vendettas remains unclear.
Personal grudges and vendettas, two weasel words as different indicators of delusion.
For “District Unknown”, Afghanistan’s first heavy metal band, the answer could be “Two Seconds After the Blast”, from their soon-to-be recorded first album, “A 24-hour life time”…
The thumping, heavy metal rock and aggressive lyrics which reverberate within the sound-proof walls of Kabul’s “Sound Centre” music school allows young Afghans to vent their anger at the violence they have witnessed during years of war before and after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States …
Kabul’s rock music school, housed inside the small “Venue” restaurant in the Afghan capital, also reflects the return, although sometimes tentative, of social and individual freedoms since the end of the Taliban rule … And the shadow of the Taliban looms large ahead of the 2014 transition when most [American] combat troops leave … The Taliban staged a 12-hour siege at a popular lakeside hotel outside Kabul this month.
I’m sure Saigon had at least one rock band in 1973, too. That ended well.
I just finished rereading Phil Caputo’s book on his experience as a Marine in Vietnam, “A Rumor of War.” In 1975, Caputo was back as a reporter to cover the fall of Saigon. The South Vietnamese shot at the evac helicopter as the Americans left town.
Eric Raum, who works for the United Service Organization, helped produce the video. On his blog, Raum explains how it all came about:
“A few weeks ago, a friend of mine here in Afghanistan, Randy Moresi, approached me about the song ‘Call Me Maybe’. I had just returned to Kandahar from the U.S. and had been taken back by how big of a hit it was, as we often miss out on the latest and greatest while in the ‘Stan and I hadn’t heard it before. She said that people were creating covers of the song, and that it would be a lot of fun for the guys and gals out here if we could create a military version. With a day off looming, we got to work trying to get things organized.”
So how do you pick who’s going to get the good video cameras, the dance move coaching, the hi-fi recording and the Final Cut Pro editing job? Rhetorical.
Meanwhile (you knew this was coming):
KABUL, Afghanistan—The Taliban said they detonated a bomb on a fuel tanker Wednesday and then opened fire on other NATO supply trucks in a morning attack that destroyed 22 vehicles loaded with fuel and other goods for U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in the country, a suicide bomber killed three Afghan soldiers at a checkpoint in the east, while militants killed nine more government troops in an ambush in the south. Three NATO service members were also killed in insurgent attacks.
The violence comes as Afghan forces are taking charge of security in more areas across the country ahead of the planned withdrawal of the U.S.-led coalition’s combat forces by the end of 2014. To show they remain a resilient force, insurgents are conducting targeted attacks, even in relatively peaceful parts of the country.
Such gay music. Good for morale. But it’s a shame to waste it so mindlessly on delusions.
It’s a play on the old pejorative “Vietnamization,” the word for the failed strategy of propping up the old Army of the Republic of Vietnam with US air power while transferring the job of fighting the war to it.
Without US air, the Afghan toady army, like the ARVN, gets beat up.
US bombing always suppresses or removes the enemy, like removing a boulder blocking a road to nowhere.
“Asked how Afghan soldiers or police officers might manage a similar tactical problem in the same canyon, Commander Burks gave a knowing frown,” reads the Times. “I don’t know, but they’re not going to do this.”
And the Steve Aftergood’s Secrecy blog has recently posted a Congressional Research Report on Afghan Army casualties. It is here.
There are two important figures.
And the numbers, if reliable, on Afghan National military casualties.
One can only tell the national toady army and police force don’t bear the brunt of any fighting. When they do fight, they are more likely to die than US forces.
This may also indicate other problems.
The Afghan National army may, like the ARVN, be casualty and risk averse, reluctant to fight. And that when it fights, it loses.
It may also often be ambushed, in its barracks, at home or in the field. And that the handling of those blown up or shot is much less effective than US retrieval of combat casualties, meaning you are more likely to not survive if hit in the war.
Over ten years in Afghanistan and the US military cannot make a decent fighting force out of the locals dragooned to finish the war for an unpopular central government.
The third US drone strike in as many days in Pakistan has raised the three-day death toll in the aerial attacks to at least 27, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
Monday’s strike in the Hesokhel village of North Waziristan’s tribal areas, was said to have targeted a hideout for fighters, officials said.
The latest strike, which officials said had killed 15 people, was the seventh in a span of less than two weeks.
The attack on Monday morning came just after a strike on Sunday that killed 10 suspected fighters …
“Many people here in Pakistan are frankly tired of the United States’ presence in the region, and are calling for Islamabad to sever ties with the US …”
That wouldn’t stop the drones. You have to make them stop, dudes, not just complain about it. Haven’t you gotten that yet?
The reason Pakistan isn’t stopping the drones is because it’s military has no capability and can’t afford to have its best gear quickly destroyed in any fight, small or large, with the US military.
“The best startlingly real and truthful electric folk rock song this year!” — Joe Morgansternly, The Weekly National Standard Journal & Politico Review
On a side note: Have you noticed everything the celebrities and chosen few (SNL and television/movie stars slumming at Funny or Die, comic strips at DailyKos chosen by Tom Tomorrow, Bill Maher, etc) is always posted everywhere? But that everyone else not connected to this select network — and there are many — go nowhere. That’s the power of social networking.
Good for the famous in the culture of lickspittle, everyone else, not so much.
Good news, lads! Good news! Brand USA — The National Anthem. Still big with all those on the end of military broadband connections in Afghanistan. Must be the ‘whores and beer’ sing along part.
‘Pennsyltuckyvoter’ man at 2:31. Thanks Mr. Fussell.
And Jesus of America said to the unemployed masses: “There can be no gold for you because it is needed to pay for the scourging of the underwear bombers.”
“The U.S., which has a long history of violent plutocratic rule unknown to the textbook-fed, will stand out as the best-armed Third World country, its population ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-educated, ill-cared for in health, and increasingly poverty-stricken: even Social Security may be whittled down, impoverishing tens of millions of the elderly.
“As empires decline, their leaders become increasingly incompetent — petulant, ignorant, gifted only with PR skills of posturing and spinning, and prone to the appointment of loyal idiots to important government positions. Comedy thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.”
