The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: famousdayandyear on September 27, 2012, 03:44:11 am
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It's Not You, It's Me....
Posted By Deebow • [September 25, 2012]
Haven't we heard that before?
Paul Sperry over at the NY Post has an article that shows evidently, over at the Puzzle Palace, the solution to the "Green on Blue" Ad Hoc Unfriendly Bullet Exchange Program is not for us to double down on our Force Protection measures and examine how we are going to keep our savage allies from shooting us; it is to stop by the clearing barrel on the way into a classroom to be Powerpointed to Death on how it is that blowing your nose in front of a Muslim is such a blood libel that the only answer to it is for the person who witnessed it to immediately murder the nose blower.
If you don’t want to be shot in the back by your Afghan training partners, the Pentagon advises, don’t offend their religious sensibilities. Don’t kick your feet up on a table, for instance, and never ask to see a picture of their wives and kids. “There’s a percentage [of attacks] which are cultural affronts,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in a recent interview.
I probably don't need to say that the fact that General Dempsey ordered this safety standown makes him a world class tool. Responding to incidents and widespread operational issues like this with our troops with solutions like this further confirms for me the exact consistency of the chewy center of this poopy flavored lollipop; and evidently, I am not the only one who has had to lick this thing...
“I would like to see a public affairs officer explain to the press where showing the bottom of your shoe to a Muslim or shaking with your left hand was legitimate grounds for murder,” growled one US Army official.
“The cultural affronts excuse is a bunch of garbage,” a senior US Army intelligence official told me. “The Afghans that know we’re doing all this PC cultural sensitivity crap are laughing their asses off at our stupidity.”
I am speaking from a point of expertise on this; as someone who has been part of having an extremely angry Afghan soldier attempt to murder Captain Jack because he didn't want to pull security and felt offended enough to reach for his AK-47 and teach Captain Jack a thing or two about offending him. For his troubles, he got his ass kicked by Captain Jack and nearly got his head blown off when he turned to come at me. So let me say that the proper response is not to look deep inside our souls and reflect on how it is that we could have done something to not offend these savages.
And evidently, the interviewed US Army Intelligence official knows the real reason that we are having break in our operations tempo based upon this additional problem...
Explained the intelligence official: “They’re killing us because we’re ‘infidels’ occupying Islamic lands. It’s what the Koran and every imam over there is telling them, and no amount of cultural sensitivity is going to stop that or change the fact that we’re ‘infidels.’ ”
Because we are infidels... That's right. The whole reason is because we are now the enemy; and truth be told, we always were the enemy. Why can't this guy run the war?
This is the elephant in the room and the problem that "we dare not speak its name" that General Dempsey knows is true. That's right, the Tailban have nearly completed their indoctrination/inflitration of the Afghan Security Forces and are openly attacking us. Not saying it doesn't make us safer and learning about local customs and mores is not the cure to this problem.
We can talk about all of the "vetting" of personnel that we want, but in a country that, with the exception of one paved road, tractors, cell phones and gas powered generators, is somewhere around the 10th to 12th century in its development; how do you recruit and train good people when we have no idea if they are who they say they are and ZERO ways to really identify them. I have never seen it done, but I am certain that doing any sort of background check on any of the recruits for the ANA or ANP must be an epically monumental task. How do you distinguish one Mahmoud Gulbiddin from Ghazni Province from the other? What database do you use to check his criminal record in? Who do you interview to find out if he is a good person or not? Do we just take their word for it?
I understand that a certain amount of "jointness" has to take place in any sort of COIN conflict, but truth be told, and Jimbo will back me up on this, we need the locals for terrain mapping, scouting, limited logistical support and help to establish the "ground truth" and shape the battlefield for the higher HQ. The locals need us to heal their sick animals, repair and replace their armaments, replenish their ammo supply, teach them what "flanking maneuver" means and to use our air power and lines of communications to our own mutual ends.
You will notice that I didn't include sharing latrines where poop gets flung against the walls by people who can't understand toilet paper, having lunch together in places so dirty I wouldn't let my dog eat there or learning about how praying during Ramadan must take place "right now" in the middle of a patrol in Indian Country.
The amount of "jointness" we now need in our operations has now reached "slim and none" on the meter. We have throughout the conflict in Afghanistan only operated jointly to support the nation building objectives of our politicians and not out of any need to have the Afghans present because of their overwhelming fire support. We have always been able to conduct our own operations without the Afghans, and truth be told, they went much smoother and were much more problem free when they spent their time on the FOB.
I know the OinC has got a plan somewhere in his empty head of buggin' out in 2014, but my own vote is that it is long past time to leave these hopeless savages who wipe their asses with their hands to their fate. I care not to spill blood and squander treasure any longer on people who want to live this way and are proud to be right where they are. Somewhere around 1200 AD, we drove right past their asses in the development department and right around the Industrial Revolution, we hit the nitrous and shifted to overdrive. They have been sitting still ever since.
So go ahead and call me the infidel. Enjoy your cholera, open sewers, tribal governance, dirty water, non existent infrastructure and constant famine. I will be here driving my Hummer eating a bacon sandwich living in a house with indoor plumbing, petting my unclean dog and raising my son to respect others, even if you know what they believe is wrong and to fight when whoever it is wants to put you under the sword and make you believe what they believe, or kill you for your non-belief.
Oh, and you're welcome..
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2012/09/its-not-you-its-me.html#more (http://www.blackfive.net/main/2012/09/its-not-you-its-me.html#more)