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 ...
I agree. The time to leave was years ago.
The U.S. has been actively involved in a military campaign in Afghanistan that has now dragged on longer than the U.S. Civil War and both World Wars -- combined.
Nobody even knows what the hell "victory" would even mean there. And since the most effective tactic to be used against Afghan forces who turn on U.S. soldiers is one that has already put one soldier in serious legal trouble (SSgt. Robert Bales), there's no justification for keeping any of these military personnel in harm's way over there.
I hope we decamp tomorrow.
There isn’t a thing there worth another soldier or marine’s life.
We are still fighting the Taliban you know.
They are the enemy who hosted, sheltered and funded al-Qaeda.
If we leave now the Taliban could take over Afghanistan and give sanctuary to more terrorists.
Karzai is Afghanistan’s version of someone once known as ‘Diem”. What did the US do with him?
We have played footsie long enough. Remove our troops to a location 100 miles out from any villages, and completely from Kabul. Let the JDAMS clear the territories, including all the infrastructures that we had built, in one night, at one time, so uncle Kabob cannot call nephew Hishsneesh. Then we depart the country.
Look what happened when we left Vietnam in 1973.
The communists controlled the entire country 2 years later.
Millions of South Vietnamese were imprisoned, arrested, tortured, executed or sent to re-education camps by the communists.
I guess you didn't get the memo...
White House Stands by Biden Statement That Taliban Isn't U.S. Enemy
LOL! Good one! I almost thought you were serious.
Staying in that hellhole for ten years is in no way cowardice.
You need to wrap your mind around a little bit of reality.
Afghanistan isn't a country it's an outlaw land and it has been for at least fifteen centuries. Its borders only exist because it is what's left over where the borders of other countries end. Countries that aren't too civilized themselves. The only way to remove the outlaws from Afghanistan is to kill every living thing there. Is that what we're about? Then what? Five years after that it will be re-populated by outlaws from surrounding lands.
The question is; what is 'victory' in Afghanistan? You haven't answered that because you can't.
Panetta is a POS coward, who’s address should be ClubFed for treason. He is wholly incompetent and guilty of felony buffoonery.
If you want to avoid a repeat of that in Afghanistan, I'll propose two simple measures.
1. Give every Afghan adult a modern, state-of-the-art weapon and a massive pile of ammunition.
2. Let them sort it out.
If it takes any more than that for Afghans to protect themselves, then there's really nothing that anyone can do without turning that entire country into a massive U.S. Indian reservation.
If they can't figure this out themselves, then we're wasting our time, money and lives.
You mean like we did in Viet Nam?
If we were to actually fight, sure, let's stay. But we have no intention of fighting, and conditions are getting much worse over there. The people know what's going on and they're going to side with the Taliban.
All we're doing now is sending men and women into a meat grinder for solely prideful purposes.
No more Taliban. No more Afghanistan, either. No more threat to the U.S.
If this situation is as dire as you seem to think it is, then it is f#%&ing treason for the U.S. government to carry out this mission the way it has. And if it's not that dire, then there's no reason to be there.
It's no coincidence that the U.S. stopped winning wars when we stopped trying to win wars.
They are as stone age savage and backwards as the day we went in. If we are there for a violent war mission, fine. But not 5 more years, or 5 more minutes to push the insane notion that they will ever be a free society. It isn’t worth a single life to do anything for those Afghans.
They are not my concern as a people beyond their military capability.
And the farce of our soldiers walking by opium fields under strict orders not to damage them, us giving them attack aircraft, us pretending that that they are ‘people’ in the same manner that we are is insane.
The only way we should be there is a absolute rulers, with no pretext of an Afghan government. Islam should be forbidden and eradicated. There is no other way to build a society there.
That’s why we should have stayed in Vietnam until the enemy was defeated.
Instead of running like cowards and letting millions die.
We were on the verge of victory anyway.
In the end, it is not the troops who decide the outcome, it is the politicians.
Omg, it would be humiliating. Then is your plan to stay there forever? Surely you don’t think they will ever be a society that reflects anything we would want. You cannot think they will not become a radical Islamic tribal state the minute we depart. We have already been there three times longer than we were in WWII, and are no closer to the goal.
Nation building there as long as Islam is permitted would be like trying the postwar occupation of Nazi Germany, but allowing the Nazi party to exist. Instead of murdering our very best kids with insane ROE that are pushed by our flag rank cowards, those kids should be here, having families, and being our neighbors, working with us, being teachers, cops, construction workers, and oil men.
We are wasting our best, for ungrateful people that are really more of a form of wildlife. We might as well try to teach dogs arithmetic.
There was and is no internal struggle for control of Afghanistan so that analogy fails completely.
Millions of South Vietnamese were imprisoned, arrested, tortured, executed or sent to re-education camps by the communists.
That won't happen because there is no internal struggle for control of Afghanistan.
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