Posted on 08/19/2012 9:11:51 AM PDT by moonshot925
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is urging Afghanistan to rigorously vet its security force recruits following a spate of attacks that has seen Afghan soldiers and police turn their weapons on NATO troops.
In a telephone call Saturday, Panetta encouraged President Hamid Karzai to work closely with the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan to counter such attacks, Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a written statement.
There have been a record 31 attacks on NATO forces by people wearing Afghan security force uniforms this year, the alliance's mission in Afghanistan says.
The attacks have resulted in the deaths of 39 NATO service members, according to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Three ISAF service members were killed Sunday, but not in a so-called green-on-blue attack. They died following an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said.
The latest green-on-blue attacks took place Friday. An Afghan police officer opened fire on U.S. troops in Farah province, killing two, the same day that an Afghan soldier wounded two NATO service members and an Afghan security force member in Kandahar province.
Even as NATO has blamed the majority of attacks on personal grievances rather than an infiltration by insurgents, ISAF commanding Gen. John Allen has ordered all troops in the country to carry loaded weapons around the clock.
Panetta urged Karzai to work closely with Allen to strengthen ISAF-Afghan cooperation to counter the threat, "including augmented counterintelligence measures, even more rigorous vetting of Afghan recruits, and stepped up engagement with village elders, who often play a key role by vouching for Afghan security personnel," Little said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
There is alot more work to be done.
Special Operations OPSEC targets Obama for reckless intelligence leaks (FR thread)
Dishonorable Disclosures (22:00 Youtube video)
Special Operations (OPSEC) (website to get involved)
Absolutely not. We are throwing lives and money away over there.
At first I thought this was about the SEALS turning on Obama. :)
“Afghanistan forces must be rigorously vetted”
There’s a brainstorm.
Good luck with that.
You want them to stay. Change the ROE. Stop worrying about “civilian” casualties. Free up the trigger fingers.
Absolutely. Bring them home. RE make them sitting ducks and canon fodder. The muslin-in-chief just wants to humiliate and defeat them.
The Brits and the Rooskies learned their Afghan lesson long ago.
We can’t just cut and run from a fight like cowards.
That would be humiliating.
You forgot the sarcasm tag. We should have left the minute Bin Laden was killed. Nothing in Afghanistan is worth the life of one more American. Afghanistan will never come out of the 9th century. We did what we set out to do. The Afghans need to sort this out on their own now. If they act up again we bomb them back to the 8th century. It’s long past time to bring our troops home.
I guess Panetta is thinking “better late than never”.
Proper and conservative thinking would state “Better Never Late”
There is absolutely no leadership in our Country, does anyone in the thrones of power care...I can’t hear them if they do.
The first principle of leadership is to know your soldiers and take care for their welfare...or at least it use to be.
Only a fool stays in a fight he has no chance of winning.
So what would you have us do? What is “victory”?
You know what I mean, too. Isn't that why U.S. soldiers had their weapons taken away from them when you visited there a few months ago?
“We can’t just cut and run from a fight like cowards.
That would be humiliating.”
What do we gain from remaining there? We gain absolutely nothing. We have hit every milestone we need to there. Nation Building is crap and will never work in a place that doesn’t want to join the civilized world. As I said before, there is nothing there that is worth one more American life. It’s time to bring our boys home.
Now is not the time to leave.
The Afghan security forces are a mess and Obama wants us to leave in 2014.
Way too early.
Incredibly easy to say from your keyboard. Go over there, run the stupid missions while risking life and limb, potentially get killed by the police and military forces you’re training, THEN tell me about how cowardly and humiliating it is.
Screw those people.
And just what and how does Mr. Communist want them vetted?
The Afghan Security Forces will always be a mess. They have no loyalty to the Central Govt. The Pashtuns hate the Uzbeks, the Uzbeks hate the Tajiks......... The place is an ethnic and tribal mess. Why should we give a damn about a population that doesn’t give a damn about itself as a whole?
There is nothing to be gained by remaining in that shithole any longer. You have failed to answer my question about what we gain by remaining.
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