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Loose Canons
Snapshot of a War
Is this the face of nation-building?
There’s a Reuters photo of four Afghan policemen on page A12 of the Washington Post today. It was taken Tuesday afternoon during coordinated Taliban attacks on the U.S. embassy, NATO headquarters and other coalition targets.
Policemen in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t writing parking tickets. They’re paramilitary units armed with automatic weapons. They’re supposed to be the principal security force to defend against terrorist attacks both major and minor in areas that are already “secured.” The four in the picture are armed with AK-47’s, one perhaps with a heavier weapon which is partially obscured by the men in front of it. It’s resting on the ground on a bipod. And resting is the operative word.
Though the four are apparently not under fire — if they were, they’d be deader than Julius Caesar — their deployed positions tell us a lot about them and their training.
From left to right, the first man is cowering behind a tree. His weapon is pointed at the ground and his whole face is screwed tightly into an “owwwwie, this gunfire is really loud” expression. The second man is leaning on his weapon which is serving as his leaning post, muzzle into the ground and buttplate being where his hands — one atop the other are resting. He, too, is in a semi-crouch, wincing at the noise emanating from behind him.
The source of the noise is the third man who — according to the picture’s caption — is “…firing toward a building taken over by insurgents during the attack in Kabul’s heavily fortified embassy district.” “Toward” is right. The man’s face is five or six inches above the weapon’s stock which, by the laws of geometry and physics, put his line of sight that much above the front and rear sights of the weapon. He’s doing what our spec ops guys call the “spray and pray” method. Unless you aim your fire — which, perforce, this clown isn’t doing — the odds of hitting the bad guys are about the same as hitting the lottery. It works for John Rambo, but not for real men in real gunfights.
The fourth man, the machine gunner, is looking down at his weapon. Whether he’s clearing a jam or drinking a cappuccino isn’t clear. What is clear is that he’s not down in firing position behind his weapon where he belongs.
It may be unfair to generalize the state of Afghanistan’s security forces now on the basis of these four bozos. But, then again, it may not be.
Is this the face of nation-building? I believe it is. And it’s just one more bit of proof that the house of cards we’ve built will come crashing down faster than even skeptics can imagine.
About the Author
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies. You can follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
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J.C.Eaton| 9.14.11 @ 2:13PM
If one doesn't consider the effort, money, and skilled people we've dedicated toward training the pictured goofs[and assuming WE actually tried with these bobos] the picture is really quite hysterical. Something one might see in a Larry the Cable Guy Overflies Minnesota or something.
Jack in Wi.| 9.14.11 @ 3:03PM
Mr. Babbin with all due respect: Were you not one of the neoconservatives pushing nation building and the democratization of all these countries? I think the minute we lost sight of going after Osama Bin Laden and his small gang of terrorists and started a wolrdwide war on terror, the whole thing was lost. Nation buiding has never worked for the communists or by us either. Nations are built bythe people living together, in the same neighborhood, usually over centuries.
Dick Nome| 9.14.11 @ 3:27PM
Hey Jack, you left the a and ss off your name.
loulou| 9.14.11 @ 7:01PM
he-he-he...
Clint | 9.14.11 @ 7:20PM
Apparently, loulou is a Dick.
And even Dick's Mommy labeled him a Dick
Occam's Tool| 9.18.11 @ 9:44PM
Jack, with all due respect---were you one of those clowns pushing for rules of engagement that killed Dakotah Meyer's buddies? He went on that mission because of denied artillery and air support, for fear that we'd kill Afghan Civilians.
If you've read my posts, you'd know that I would rather nuke Islamic civilians than sacrifice US lives, whereas you quail about every dead terrorist.
Bill| 9.14.11 @ 4:10PM
After over 9 years of nation-building has resulted in the tell-tale photo that tells us how much progress has been made, perhaps our society and most importantly our government is now prepared to admit that a culture that believes that the lord of the universe recreates all that exists from moment to moment is not the type of culture to be taught techniques that require the assumption that we are responsible for our own individual actions.
One NCO who was involved in teaching Iraqis marksmanship discussed his frustration with teaching them such things as sight picture, trigger control, stability, and follow-through by talking about how his students believed that if Allah wanted them to hit the target straight ahead of them, they could fire up into the air and Allah's hand would guide the bullet to the bull's eye. Personal self-discipline was not essential.
cicero| 9.14.11 @ 4:27PM
Recommended reading for the week : Rudyard Kipling. These folks have not changed since the Brits tried to nation build 200 years ago. What makes us think we will have any better luck. If the essential material is the same, how can the end product be any different?
We should have gone in after 9/11, as we did; kick the stuffings out of the bad guys, as we did; and do it with such destructibve force that they would not want us to ever come back. If they didn't learn the lesson, we could have gone back in and given them a renewwal lesson.
Once we are gone, the schools we have built will be demolished; the girls and women will be back to beast of burden status; and the tribes will go back to killing one another.
Quartermaster| 9.14.11 @ 8:36PM
Just as they did when Ivan left. The more things change....
JimH| 9.15.11 @ 6:59AM
Even Alexander had his problems there.
ole meanie| 9.18.11 @ 12:02PM
You are so right, and it has all been so foreseeable.
Furthermore, we could stay for a century and continue to "train" the untrainable, all to no result except waste of money and lives.
Neocons advocated nationbuilding, and George W Bush chose it as a justification. "We" did not lose our way; Bush did. He forgot why we went in.
The result will be the samd whether we leave now (which we should, in my view) or whether we stay on. The same is true in Iraq.
I remember reading years ago that the argument against removing Saddam was that it would create a power vacuum which Iraq would exploit. Well, it is now the justification for staying in Iraq. Why, instead, don't we let Iran get as bogged down in Iraq as we are? And why don't we let the Iranians and the iraquis and the Kurds have their merry way in killing each other? It would merely be "Allah's will".
sirbourbon| 9.14.11 @ 8:27PM
We fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and give them money and training at the same time in another part of the middle east.
Palestinian Authority (PLO) Ambassador to the United States, Maen Areikat, said publically in USA Today (9-14-11) article by Oren Dorrel summing up PA ambassador's views that Jews should not be in the Palestinian Authority .
Hillary Clinton promised the anti-semite rulers of the P.A. millions of dollars of foreign aid. This is a bipartisan effort. George W. Bush visited Mamoud Abbas the president of the PLO nation state and gave the PA millions of tax payer dollars.
Within this tangled web of deceit we find that the US government is rendering assistance to terrorists in the form of combat training. The recipients of this training call themselves al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
According to Aaron Klein in his book Schmoozing with Terrorists, and a revealing article by Wm. Jasper titled A Bad Investment:
A Bad Investment: "Few Americans are aware, however, that the deadly attack that took the life of Daniel Wultz was planned and carried out by U.S.-trained terrorists of the PLO’s (Palestine Liberation Organization) notorious al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The Brigades, which are formally listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, have carried out numerous suicide bombings, car bombings, shootings, and rocket attacks. Nevertheless, they are a major military arm of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO/Fatah organization. As such, they share in the hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that annually are showered on the Abbas-led Palestinian regime." ---WF. Jasper
From Klein's book:
[Aaron Klein, who has met and interviewed many of the Palestinian terrorist leaders, reports in his book, Schmoozing With Terrorists]:
"' ' the cell of the Brigades that directed the attack … happens to be one of the groups I am closest to.' According to Brigade sources, the entire bombing operation — from the planning to the recruitment of the suicide bomber — was carried out by Fatah’s Brigades...."
"The very crew who sent the bomber into Israel to gravely injure Daniel Wultz consisted of none other than the U.S.-trained Brigades leaders who walk around with American-provided assault rifles."
[Klein, the intrepid Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, talked to the terrorists responsible for the attack. They were unapologetic and pledged more of the same. Klein reported]:
"American-trained Nasser Abu Aziz, deputy commander of the Brigades in Nablus and the West Bank, called Wultz’s passing a 'gift from Allah.' Abu Aziz’s cell directed the bombing that killed Wultz...."
“Our money helped pay for the death of Wultz and so many others,” Klein charges.
From A Bad Investment article:
"... he provides details and hard proof to back up the charge, showing case after case of the U.S.-backed Abbas “moderates” carrying out deadly terrorist attacks, including attacks on Americans. It should be clear to all but the willfully blind that Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO/Fatah is the same vicious terrorist organization that Yassir Arafat founded nearly half a century ago. That the U.S. government not only provides the Abbas terror apparatus with financial, military, and diplomatic support, but also systematically overlooks and covers up its terrorist activities, is indefensible."
http://www.thenewamerican.com/.....tution/857
POST American| 9.14.11 @ 11:33PM
---------------------FINAL WORD-----------------------
London riots, open borders, 30 MILLION
illegals roaming the landscape, a full spectrum
Globalist police state being put in place,
systematic demonization of the good people
of America and Brtiain ---by their hijacked 'goverments'.
---------SNAPSHOT of nations being destroyed?
"We are using MASSIVE third world
immigration (largely muslim) to DESTROY
British culture beynd repair, once and for
all ---FOREVER."
-Fmr PM/Globalist TONY BLAIR
(Daily Mail interview 2005)
--------------------YOU DECIDE-------------------------
Bill| 9.15.11 @ 9:03AM
Don't forget those pesky eugenicists!
sike| 9.14.11 @ 11:34PM
Hey Jack, you left the a and ss off your name.
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Mike| 9.14.11 @ 11:35PM
After over 9 years of nation-building has resulted in the tell-tale photo that tells us how much progress has been made, perhaps our society and most importantly our government is now prepared to admit that a culture that believes that the lord of the universe recreates all that exists from moment to moment is not the type of culture to be taught techniques that require the assumption that we are responsible for our own individual actions.
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Jesse| 9.14.11 @ 11:37PM
If one doesn't consider the effort, money, and skilled people we've dedicated toward training the pictured goofs[and assuming WE actually tried with these bobos] the picture is really quite hysterical.
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Richard Baker| 9.15.11 @ 6:25AM
Well, the average Arab/Farsi male seems to have no useful purpose on Earth except to run in fear of everything. 200 years from now the countries from which they come will still be backward, filthy, and hopelessly Islamic. Hard to imagine that in the ancient world some of these countries were military and economic powerhouses. If it weren't for oil no one would give a hoot in Hell about these losers.
aware| 9.15.11 @ 6:30AM
Jed, is the taste of making the world "safe for democracy" turning bitter in your mouth? Our "leaders" announced the military will be down to 3000 in Iraq and yet, one of my good friends, a commander(major, army) is going back in 3 weeks for his 2nd "tour" of at least 18 months. He is going with 15,000 and as yet does not even know what his mission is. Since he has been training in a south Georgia swamp for a couple of months for a deployment to a desert country he hasn't a clue. He, and I, don't think a clue is to found no matter how far up the command chain you go.
The idiocy extends much farther than just 4 guys in the photo. Maybe, just maybe, spending more time and effort minding our own business would be a better idea.
Martin Owens| 9.15.11 @ 7:03AM
Isn't "Afghan policeman" a contradiction in terms?
Occam's Tool| 9.18.11 @ 9:47PM
There is a correct way to nation build there---kill every member of the Taliban and every civilian who might be leaning that way, by the simple expedient of checking DNA of dead terrorists and killing their family members---tribalists, remember? This will get the message home quick and pacify nicely. Let's be multi-culti correctly, and know our scumbag enemies.