Bad Day In Afghanistan

By Semperpapa

It has been reported that six American soldiers were killed in the eastern part of that country when a Afghan border policeman opened fire on the very troops that was training him.

This is not a new tactic among Afghans, in the majority of the cases such attacks being conducted by Taliban insurgents using uniforms of Afghan police or Army. In this case, though, preliminary accounts say that the perpetrator of the attack was a real border policeman, not someone wearing a stolen uniform.

Such attacks are truly disheartening for our troops in theater and for the families at home, because they are very difficult to defend from, as our Military is expanding and accelerating the training of Afghan forces.

And according to first hand witnesses, border police is probably the most corrupted and volatile force of all.

When my son was deployed to that region, his battalion was based at the southernmost combat outpost in the Helmand province. He and his fellow Marines had to deal with the border police that was “manning” the near border with Pakistan. By his account, any small amount of trust that the Marines had for Afghan military contingents was basically non-existent with the border folks.

Unfortunately, I am afraid such types of attacks will increase in the coming months, as the coalition forces continue to disrupt the drug trade and the Taliban puts additional pressure on the locals.

Other units in the region have been so successful in their drug interdiction operations that the Taliban has been concentrating their attacks against them, resulting in high levels of casualties.

Today was a bad day for the American Military. Losing six men in one attack is heartbreaking.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the Fallen and their Brothers in Arm