According to rt.com, Afghan soldiers who are ostensibly allies have become a cause of serious concern for American troops. “In the last six weeks, this is the seventh killing of an American soldier by an Afghan partner. Following the burning of Muslim holy books at Bagram Air Base, an Afghan soldier gunned down two US troops on February 23. Eight days later, two more American combatants were killed inside an Afghan ministry and two Army paratroopers were shot by Afghan soldiers in Kandahar province.” And in the wake of the murder of sixteen Afghan civilians, allegedly by Sgt. Robert Bales, the situation doesn’t look to improve any time soon . . .

But the military appears to be keeping the fragging quiet, being conveniently vague when listing causes of death such as “came under small arms fire” in these situations.

First warnings of a “rapidly growing systemic threat” for American soldiers were voiced back in May 2011 in a classified report submitted by Jeffrey Bordin, a behavioral scientist with the US Army in Afghanistan.

Bordin wrote of a dangerous “crisis of trust” between American and Afghan forces, which could unwind into an “unprecedented” magnitude of killings “between ‘allies’ in modern history.”

The report received a harsh review among coalition officials, says The Wall Street Journal, but nine months after it a spokesman for the Security Assistance Force still describes the number of American troops killed by their Afghan partners as “high.”

“We just never know if there’s a Taliban sympathizer among the Afghan Army troops or within the security forces,” an Army official told The Washington Examiner. “We remain very aware that at any time we may have an enemy among us with direct access to our troops inside the wire.”

The report claims journalists have counted at least seventy American soldiers killed by Afghans since 2007, so problem goes back long before the recent Koran burning incident. And it’s more than simply Taliban infiltrators.

As Bordin concluded, “the allies are divided by a solid mutual dislike coupled with a desire to survive at the other’s expense.” Not exactly the ideal working relationship. While American troops are trying to prepare Afghan regulars to take over for them after the scheduled 2014 withdrawal, this thing can’t end soon enough.

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26 COMMENTS

  1. I almost thought you did an post on RT’s article about the recent Kandahar civilian massacre, which said it was done by US forces in retaliation. And that 15-20 US service members were involved even though DoD says it was only 1 service member, who has since been evacuated out of the country, to ensure he wont face the Afgahn justice system. Which is kind of funny when you think about it because Bradley Manning has been in the bring the whole time, because he leaked a video of US forces massacring civilians.

    http://rt.com/news/massacre-kandahar-soldier-american-705/
    http://rt.com/news/afghanistan-us-soldier-kuwait-617/

    • +1 – While Afghanistan has become a U.S. quagmire and we should all be deeply concerned about our Troops being killed by treacherous “Afghan Allies” and the apparent craziness the deployment is causing amongst our Troops…Skyler is right. This has nothing to do with guns and the purported purposes of this web site.

      • People got shot, pretty sure that involves a gun. The purpose of the site includes discussions on the “dangers” of guns, which apparently are great if they are in the hands of Afghan soldiers, and you happen to be an American. If anything this is more relevant to guns than other posts like the SWAT vehicle or 9-11 anniversary post.

        • +1 agreed, this situation is becoming endemic for our people deployed, and yes im pretty sure these situation involve guns too.

        • Zimmerman does not focus on “the dangers of guns” in his conclusion to the piece, but, then, that would be obvious and thanks for pointing that out for others who might not have got it.
          Of the Americans (and Brits and other non-Afghan Allies) killed by Afghans, I agree with you I’m pretty certain quite a few got shot, but then there are IED’s, Suicide Bombers, Mortars, RPG’s and Stinger Missiles, which probably, on-balance, account for more deaths than pistols or rifles.
          I guess the confusion here falls on Zimmerman drawing a misleading conclusion to the piece, or me being a cranky old bastard, or you being Captain Obvious…but what the hell…what Zimmerman wrote is worthy of discussion under any pretense.

    • It has a Hell of a lot to do with guns, and civil rights, and the constitution and stuff. Allegedly, Afghanistan is the forefront of the War on Terror, whatever that actually is. This WOT is constantly used as an excuse to abridge our constitutional rights. So yes, it matters.

  4. Seems like Vietnam….
    Actually, when I was watching Restrepo and some of the fire fights and ambushes, it just reminded me of some of the Five O’Clock Follies.
    I still loved the Russian Film 9th Company. My sentiments exactly about the “loyal” Afghans.

  5. Political correctness.
    Dangerous when applied to fighting wars.
    Dangerous when applied to guns.

  6. I do not condone AQT or its adherants,but the core of the problem is that we are trying to establish a government in a place which really doesn’t want one.I can hardly blame the Afghan civilians for that;they’ve lived decades without a large corrupt bureacracy and are in no hurry to establish one to live under.Considering how corrupt Karzais administration is the D.O.D. has enough cause & need to level Kabul completely on the way out.

    • I consider Afghanistan a bunch of Islamic Hillbillies who get it on with goats. My Cousin’s kids are military officers in combat units and have been in Afghanistan multiple tours. People think Afghanistan is civilized because they have religion; but it really is not civilized at all. There really is not, nor has really ever been a central government there. Patchwork of War Lords, Tribes, and Religous Shamans rule the place.

      • Afghanistan has had corrupt and dictatorial governments rule some of the valleys and cities which had trade routes; and that is about the limit of the Karzai Government.

    • “They’ve lived decades without a large corrupt bureacracy ”

      Right, they only lived under corrupt warlords, communist lackeys, boy-raping Fislamic “leaders”, and now under a capitalist warlord.

      You have no idea of what you’re talking about.

      PS – to the original commenter; regardless of motive, slaughtering civilians sucks, but posting from RT which is Putin’s FSB propaganda organ makes you look like a fool. (Even the far left Guardian says RT is BS).

  7. If it’s a choice between this topic and Reality Show Stars or Nerf Guns, I’ll take this topic. To borrow a Danny De Vito trope: War can never be reported honestly. That’s why they call it war. We always find out later, much later. For example, we found out that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was staged, that the North Vietnamese were suckered. We know who did it, and how they did it. I was a nobody gunner and then crew chief at age 18-19. But when we aircrew were loaned out to somebody serious doing something questionable, they made the aircrews sign their lives away should they reveal X. Then, in 1991, they declassified it all. If the war is really important, fine, keep the secrets. If the war is pointless and the pretext secretly manufactured, I have problems. Iraq made sense to me as protection for Saudi Arabia, nothing more, a return of favors. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Afghanistan was worth invading with anything but SAD SOG and Spec Ops, and briefly. Fraggings? That’s not new. It was happening early on. I’m sure we all recall that Karzai’s government had to start re-vetting everyone. Then the CIA station was blown up. And on and on. I don’t consider this stuff “fragging,” btw. I consider it enemy Taliban infiltrating government forces. I’m more upset about our DoD money being flown from Kabul to Dubai every week, stolen. OK, I’ll try and stay on topic…..

  8. Seems pretty cut/dried to me. Pull out all our troops/support, and let them blend back into the friggin stone age. OBVIOUSLY they dont want/need any of our help, so in effect, screw em….

    • Our mistake is not treating them like the Germans at the end of WW2:

      DE-NAZIFICATION.

      IT WORKS.

        • Yep. How many remember the line used on the Soviets, used when our space program put a man on the moon, “Our Germans are smarter than your Germans!”? Der Spiegel ran an article last week about how the post-war German courts were heavily staffed with judges having Nazi ties because….there weren’t enough qualified judges. Same went for the civil service in W. Germany.

        • Actually, I have a book about post war Germany, and the Americans put more Nazis in power in 1945-50 than were in power in 1939.

          Thing is…it really did not matter.

          The Nazis gave up on Nazism in 1944. Nazis went through the motions in 1945. Even the Nazis really wanted to move onto other things.

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