Things we do not understand - Afghanistan, part 2

I know a trusted source in the U.S. military (once removed) in Afghanistan. It would be a shame to waste these precious observations. Afghanistan part 1 was about pedophilia being an embedded aspect of Afghan culture. This post is going to be about our military and how it routinely does not inform us, presumably on orders from our inept civilian leaders.

From the front

Summing up the situation based on latest dispatch is simple - its SNAFU, as applied in the frustration sense.

My source is an officer in the U.S. military (above sergeant but below a flag officer). My source relays the following intel back to us boob taxpayers on the home front. According to my source, deployment of our troops to "forward operating bases" (FOBs) or something like that, that are manned by our stalwart Afghan allies reveals the true depth and scope of the sincere alliance with America's new found friend, Afghanistan. At Baghram, other strange items of interest occur. But, first things first.

Cottage cheese

If my pedophilia post and/or this one doesn't curdle your milk nothing will. That assumes you give me any credibility. For hard core war supporters, I assume that you will ignore, distort or deny the following.

Why we send them there

On deployment to a FOB, American troops, among other things, are supposed to help our steadfast Afghan allies and to train them in all sorts of modern warfare arts. As one would expect, the U.S. military wants and demands discipline and punctuality. OK, good enough. So how does that go down with our stalwart Afghan allies? Here is an insightful account.

At a FOB, the U.S. officer in charge calls for a meeting at, say, 08:00 sharp tomorrow for training on how to do something useful in war, maybe, e.g., how to purify contaminated water or stop wounded comrades from bleeding to death before they can be sent to a hospital.

In one case, at 08:00, American troops and officers show up to train our Afghan allies. Oddly, no Afghani troops show up. A runner is sent to wherever our allies are and come back with this critical intel: They are still asleep. We troops set another meeting up for 10:30 the next day. The next day, nobody shows up. Nobody knows why. We then set the meeting up for 2:30 the next day. Two Afghans out of an anticipated 10-20 show up, but they leave when they get bored.

Why?

So, why the underwhelming response? Because our allies aren't there to learn anything from us. They are there in the most minimal sense to collect their pay. That's it. Nothing else. No pay, no cooperation. Afghan troops and/or military doctors don't care if their comrades (or our troops) bleed to death or anything else. There isn't anything our troops can do about any of it. Yes indeed, we are in trouble in Afghanistan.

Back at the ranch

Meanwhile, back at Baghram, our troops get to play Russian roulette. Insurgents lob the occasional shell or rocket onto the base at times convenient to them. Most of their flying bombs hit the dirt and do nothing other than annoying U.S. troops, interrupting sleep and/or making them wear shoes to avoid shrapnel cuts. However, on one recent occasion, a shell hit a pole next to a B hut, injuring the four U.S. soldiers in the hut. The culprit was shrapnel. If it weren't for that nutty pole, that incident might have been much worse.

High command strategy

So, what was the U.S. military command's concern? This is what: Whether to give U.S. soldiers who rushed to the B hut a purple heart for cutting their feet on broken glass/plastic or shrapnel. There was no quibbling - soldiers in the B hut who got shrapneled get a Purple Heart. But what about their barefoot rescuers? Commanders were concerned that they might sue the military for bleeding - that was the focus of discussion.

There is more - at the airport, safety first

The last tale from the Twilight Zone centers on airport security. When our troops board an airplane in Afghanistan to go somewhere else in Afghanistan, they have go through security, just like the rest of us here back at the home front.

The way airport security works for our troops is this: They put their nail polish, nail clippers, knives, side arms, ammo clips, rifles, machine guns, grenades, stinger surface to air missiles, bazookas and bazooka ammo, thermonuclear weapons and what not in little trays and the hardware goes through the scan machine. The weapons are scanned to confirm that the weapons and ammo are weapons and ammo.

Then the security folks hand it all back to our troops with a heart felt greeting like "have a nice flight and be safe". It makes everyone feel safer. Then everyone boards the airplane armed to the teeth and in a foul mood. Safety first. What the are we doing over there and why are we doing it?

So, what are us taxpayers to do? We have to pay, like it or not. Success or not. Heroism or not. We always pay, regardless of how profoundly awful (or good) our civilian or military leadership is. Other than voting against a Democrat or Republican, we have no recourse if we are unhappy. For people happy with things as they are, they presumably have little or no concern about voting for the status quo or their favored political party. But speaking for my dissatisfied self, a pox on the two parties and the inept system that gave us this expensive, nonsense and 9 years of botched war policy.