Too Much of This
Posted by lex, on January 10th, 2012
Part of the US’ disengagement strategy from Afghanistan relies on training the Afghan National Army to take up security duties, preventing a rapid Taliban walk-though of their lines. But all too frequently, our ANA “partners” seem anything but:
An Afghan soldier turned his gun on American military personnel while they were playing volleyball at a camp in southern Afghanistan, killing one and wounding three others before being fatally shot, the Afghan police said on Monday.
It was the third time in just over two weeks that a man wearing an Afghan Army uniform attacked NATO personnel. In the earlier cases, the Taliban claimed responsibility, although there was no immediate claim in this case that the Afghan soldier had Taliban sympathies.
The attack took place on Sunday afternoon in Qalat, the capital of Zabul Province. The Afghan soldier approached the volleyball game and appeared to watch the soldiers play before opening fire with an M-16 assault rifle, said Ghulam Jilani Farahi, deputy police chief of Zabul Province. Another American soldier who heard the firing shot and killed the attacker, he said.
Our troops have been trained to be “culturally sensitive” around their ANA partners, in hopes that avoiding infantry humor such as noisily breaking wind or urinating in the wrong direction might prevent their “allies” from murdering them.
Now, it appears, they will have to eschew volleyball.
The whole place is full of crazy.