Kip Powick Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 The "mentoring" program is not working so well...could have been our guys....(number 133 arrived here yesterday) Not working well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canus Chinookus Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Kip, could you not only paste the link, but the article as well? Links don't always last very long, and in this case, the site went down. Talk about a conversation killer.... again... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boestar Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Elena Becatoros Kabul, Afghanistan — Associated Press Published on Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009 3:17AM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009 7:36AM EST .An Afghan police officer opened fire on British soldiers in the volatile southern province of Helmand, killing five, British and Afghan authorities said Wednesday, raising concerns about discipline within the Afghan forces and possible infiltration by insurgents. The incident came almost exactly a month after an Afghan police officer on patrol with U.S. soldiers opened fire on the Americans, killing two before fleeing. The five British soldiers were killed in Helmand's Nad-e-Ali district on Tuesday afternoon, Britain's Defence Ministry said, bringing the total number British forces personnel who have died in Afghanistan to 229. Britain has 9,000 troops in the country. “The soldiers concerned were mentoring Afghan national police. They were working inside and living inside an Afghan national police checkpoint, just outside Nad-e-Ali district centre,” Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, spokesman for the British forces, told Sky News. “It is our initial understanding that an individual Afghan policeman possibly acting in conjunction with one other started firing inside the checkpoint before fleeing from the scene.” NATO said the attacker's motives were unclear, and that the incident was being investigated by Afghan authorities and Britain's Royal Military Police. In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown extended his condolences to the soldiers' families. “The death of five brave soldiers in a single incident is a terrible loss,” he said. “They fought to make Afghanistan more secure, but above all to make Britain safer from the terrorism and extremism which continues to threaten us from the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Mr. Brown insisted he remained committed to ensuring his country's troops had “the best possible support and equipment — and the right strategy, backed by our international partners, and by a new Afghan government ready to play its part in confronting the challenges Afghanistan faces.” Training and operating jointly with Afghan police and soldiers is key to NATO's strategy of dealing with the spreading Taliban-led insurgency and, ultimately, allowing international forces to leave Afghanistan. Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who was the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan's recent fraud-marred election, said the continuing violence showed that the Karzai administration had failed to bring peace to the country despite assistance from international forces. “As far as the presence of international forces in Afghanistan is concerned, eight years of golden opportunity we have missed. You were here. Your soldiers were here, and they have made sacrifices for bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan,” Mr. Abdullah said during a news conference in Kabul. “But eight years down the road we still need more troops. In the absence of a credible and reliable and legitimate partner, more soldiers, more resources” are needed, he said. Last year over a period of less than a month, Afghan police officers twice attacked American soldiers in the east of the country. In October 2008, a police officer threw a grenade and opened fire on a U.S. foot patrol, killing one soldier, while the previous month, an officer opened fire at a Paktia police station, killing a soldier and wounding three before he was fatally shot. Peter Galbraith, the former top American official at the UN mission in Afghanistan who had called attention to fraud charges in the country's presidential election, told British radio that police training and recruiting had been “rushed” in Afghanistan. “It is a terrible tragedy but it is, I won't quite say inevitable, but it is not surprising,” he told BBC Radio 4. “The process of police training and recruiting has been very rushed. Normally the police get an eight-week training course. That is actually very short and there isn't a lot of vetting of police before they are hired.” Yet such incidents are not unique to Afghanistan. They have also occurred in Iraq, where U.S. and coalition forces are engaged in a similar process of mentoring and training the Iraqi army and police. In February, two Iraqi policeman opened fire at a police outpost in Mosul in northern Iraq, killing one American soldier and an interpreter and wounding three other U.S. soldiers. The shooting was the fourth attack in the region since late 2007 with suspected links to Iraqi security units. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canus Chinookus Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Once again, another reason to stay and finish it. I don't know about you guys, but I'm of the opinion the war won't end by the West pulling out of the middle east. It'll only bring the war to the west, where our own children will be at risk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest woxof Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 WWI was a distant thing where many died as well. We could have walked away from that one as well without thinking of the consequences. And many did say that we shouldn't be involved. History repeats in many ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chockalicious Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Once again, another reason to stay and finish it. I don't know about you guys, but I'm of the opinion the war won't end by the West pulling out of the middle east. It'll only bring the war to the west, where our own children will be at risk. Hey CC Honest question here, what do you mean by finishing it? Can anybody say what victory looks like? I don't think that the "heats and minds" campaign will work. I have not seen the evidence that it works, especially in a society that has no effective central government. How do you root out an enemy that can just blend in? I also am not a subscriber to the "if we don't fight them over there we will have to fight them over here". I think investifgative police type work rather than a war effort will keep us safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canus Chinookus Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Hey CC Honest question here, what do you mean by finishing it? Can anybody say what victory looks like? I don't think that the "heats and minds" campaign will work. I have not seen the evidence that it works, especially in a society that has no effective central government. How do you root out an enemy that can just blend in? I also am not a subscriber to the "if we don't fight them over there we will have to fight them over here". I think investifgative police type work rather than a war effort will keep us safe. I regretted using the word 'finish it' as I typed it. We won't win as long as there are terrorists who aren't interested in following the international rules for war. I don't know what it will take for them to quit, but I am also fully aware that pulling out won't work either. As for investigative police work, sure, it works what, 20% of the time? 30%? Yeah, I don't know how effective it is either, but it sure as hell isn't 100% either. For now though, I DO know the terrorists are funneling into Iraq and Afghanistan to fight, rather than sneaking into North America and hijacking airplanes(for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chockalicious Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Fair Enough CC and I understand what you mean. I suppose that how I look at this is that I think any terror plots against the west will be stopped by doing police, intelligence work and not by waging war half a world away. FWIW I also think that attacks against the west are going to come from home grown terrorists, not from someone overseas. Loot at the past plots that have been foiled, most of the plotters were citizens of that county (the British subway attack for example). I don't believe that tying up a fighter over there keeps us safer over here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chockalicious Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Maybe instead of sending troops we can air drop these in... Though the men were armed with AK-47 machine guns, "the attack seems to have been so violent that both the militants got no chance to fire back at the wild animal," the spokesman, Col. JS Brar, told the Indian newspaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boestar Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 Therein lies the rub. you can fight them over there but for every one you fight there thare is another "blending in" over here. Sure maybe the sleeper cell thing is an idea of hollywood but I am sure they exist and just lay in wait. Believe me the terorists of the world are not in any hurry to win the "war" Places like AFganistan and Iraq etc. are distractions away from the real terrorists in the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conehead Posted November 4, 2009 Share Posted November 4, 2009 "the attack seems to have been so violent that both the militants got no chance to fire back at the wild animal," Fire back? This would certainly suggest that the bear fired first! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 Kip, could you not only paste the link, but the article as well? Links don't always last very long, and in this case, the site went down. Talk about a conversation killer.... again... OK..in future I will. PS... I tried the link at 7:35pm EST and it worked OK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boestar Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 it worked fine for me when he asked so I posted the article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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