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Country Joe McDonald at Woodstock singin’ that Fixin’ to Die Rag.
A curious event happened in Afghanistan yesterday. Actually, a lot of curious events happened, but I want to focus on two of them that grabbed my attention.
As y’all know, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta jetted to Afghanistan to attempt to put out the firestorm caused by the as yet unnamed U.S. soldier who slaughtered 16 Afghan civilians, 9 of them children, as they slept in their beds.
He made a bunch of bullshit speeches about staying the course; he shook a bunch of hands; and smiled a bunch of smiles. But he seemed, well, kind of off. Scared maybe. At least that was my take on it.
Might have had to do with something that happened just before he arrived at the base airport in Helmand province. An Afghan civilian commandeered a vehicle and attempted to run over a bunch of the brass welcoming committee standing out on the tarmac waiting for Panetta’s plane to pull in after it landed. They saw him coming and scattered avoiding injury. The guy stopped the vehicle and set a bunch of gas cans and himself on fire.
Poof!
Not even the most skilled torturers at the base could get anything out of him.
So, Panetta gets off the plane and they stand around scratching their heads exchanging wtf-wow-did-you-see-that type remarks and its on to a big inflated-type tent somewhere on the base where Panetta is scheduled to speak to a bunch of Marines, except . . .
The patiently waiting Marines are ordered to leave the tent and disarm, piling all of their M4s, M16s, 9 mm handguns, ammo, knives, and assorted other weapons on the ground outside the tent, notwithstanding the rule that Marines in a war zone are never supposed to be unarmed.
After they come back scratching their heads wondering wtf and resume their seats, Panetta comes out and tells them everything is copacetic; we’re winning the war; and all we need to do is stay-the-course.
And poof! Off he goes to his next venue.
Now, I was never in the Marine Corps and never served in the military, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I would have been furious, if I were one of those Marines. What kind of message was that?
“Y’all are a bunch of fucking crazy psycho killers and I don’t feel safe around you.”
That’s not the way to treat a Marine.
Was it possible for the United States Secretary of Defense to have done anything more stupid and disrespectful?
Wow! Just wow!
Here’s a link to an article about the incident.
30 Comments
Hey, you never know whether some narco-trafficker had more money to burn than the USG could outspend. That’s perfectly understandable, no?
You really have to worry when they start going native. Time to retreat to the embassy, then.
Guess you’re not buying the whole ‘the Afghan security forces were unarmed, so what could we do?’ explanation?
And that…really is an equally, or more, serious matter, IMO. Increasingly, the Afghans are using the weapons to shoot ISAF forces. Reading the leaked reports concerning the true state of the forces the US, et.al. have been calling ‘almost ready to stand up on their own’ is becoming tired and sickening. 80% can’t read, many are drug-addicted, can’t site in rifles, steal the uniforms, rifles and split…ye gods and little fishes it’s a nightmare.
And all of it means that Karzai has no bargaining power when if comes to forcing the night raids and drone murders to stop, since he needs a SOFA that will protect his ass sometime, if ISAF (read: US) ever does want to leave there before 2025. It’s already in the works that contract security forces will be increased, and who knows how many, and if we’ll ever hear the true count. Congress sure doesn’t want to know anything about that, boy howdy.
But yeah, Mason; it’s all FUBAR. Rec’d.
Yeah, I’m not buying that explanation because I would prefer armed Marines to unarmed Marines when I was in the presence of supposedly unarmed Afghan National Army soldiers.
I mean, what if one of them had one of those liquid bombs we’re all supposed to be terrified about, or a bare bodkin like Hamlet hallucinated about.
Disarming the Marines was the equivalent of saying, “I fear for my life and I don’t trust you.”
That’s both an admission of cowardice and an insult.
So, now that we know the Marines and probably the rest of our troops in Afghanistan, if not all of the armed services, think Panetta is a coward who does not respect and trust them, I’m sure as shootin’ fish in a barrel that they are thrilled as all get-out to continue to risk their lives every time they go out on patrol with their oh-so-loyal Afghan partners.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I doubt it. I think troop discipline, which is already unraveling, will really start to fly apart now like it did in Vietnam when soldiers started fraggin’ their platoon leaders.
It’s over and we need to get out now,
The only reasons we aren’t are:
1. Obama will not withdraw before the election because he’s afraid the right wing will jump on him and he’ll lose the election;
2. The generals don’t want to get tagged with losing the war;
3. Win or lose, war is big business.
4. Heroin is big business.
Therefore, the body count will continue to mount.
‘Whoopee, we’re all gonna die.”
Guess I should have included a snark tag with my question.
More reasons are the New Silk Road Dreams (still operative thought) and the pipelines, remember. There are also an ungodly amount of bases there now, too, both small and huge; lots to guard…’we’ will never leave there willingly! And the border with Pakistan…well, that war ain’t goin’ away, either, and ‘we’ must keep the bases, la la la…
Oh: and the women. That was reason/justification #17, I believe. Oh; guess that one got shit-canned when we started bombing and droning so many of ‘em.
‘Plenty good money to be made
by supplying the army with the tools of the trade’
Anyhoo; thanks for bringin’ the events to our attention; I never clicked on any of the titles…
Thanks for the added justifications that I spaced out.
Oh, and one more.
The rare earths like lithium.
Panetta’s really been on a roll of late…
Panetta: US will ‘take action’ if Israel hits Iran
…Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that the United States would intervene if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, although he did not indicate the extent of the possible military involvement.
Per Gaius on AmericaBlog: http://www.americablog.com/2012/03/afghan-parliamentary-probe-up-to-20-us.html
When this breaks into the U.S. media, the shit will hit the fan. As with Watergate, it’s not so much the crime as the coverup!
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
There’s an update to Marcy’s shop at the Americablog article you linked to:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/03/16/the-other-drinking-soldiers/#more-25726
Here’s another update at the Agonist:
http://agonist.org/steve_hynd/20120316/afghan_probe_finds_15_20_us_soldiers_involved_in_kandahar_killings#new
An investigation by the Afghan Parliament has reportedly concluded that 15-20 U.S. soldiers were involved in the killings and there is much interesting speculation at both sites regarding what might have happened and why it happened.
Come to think of it, the lone shooter story is a stretch. Apparently, the guy made two trips; returned from the first one @ 0030 hrs and then he left again sometime @ 0300-0400 hrs. One village is about a half mile south of the fort and the other is about a half mile north of it.
Did he act alone?
Assuming for the sake of argument that he didn’t, why the cover-up?
Thanks for the link.
Busy guy with a sad face.
Why the coverup? Because it shatters the lone gunman line. Even 2 killers is qualitatively different from one, from one man cracking under pressure to an actual operation, however rogue.
Or an actual operation with approval from up the chain of command . . .
Why burn the bodies, unless it was to conceal evidence?
What sort of evidence?
Multiple gunshot wounds from different weapons?
Why didn’t anyone at the base hear any gunshots?
Seems like they must have.
Why didn’t they send out a patrol?
Did they know what was going on?
Highly rcc’d for the title and the vid.
Was there, did that, Berkeley, Palo Alto.
*G*
In another CNN link inside the one you posted (3/14) was this:
I guess the bolded portion would indicate a patrol. The Truth will remain ‘Out There’, won’t it?
Here’s a BBC piece with the Sergeant’s name, etc. You’d know better, but it reads like it was written by his defense attorney; maybe I’m too cynical.
Yes, John Henry Browne, whom I know very well, is aggressively trying his case in the press.
I’ve done that too when circumstances warranted, but right now, I think circumstances call for silence because too much is unknown.
Apparently, Sgt Bales’s family has retained John Henry and most of the information that he has disclosed likely comes from them. I don’t know whether he has even talked to his client, given the way the military operates. If he has, it would have had to have been a relatively brief phone conversation over an insecure line.
Under such circumstances, I would have introduced myself and recommended we postpone talking about the case until we meet for a face-to-face in an attorney-client interview room at Leavenworth. Then I would have asked him about his physical and mental condition offering to do anything within my power to get him some medical or psychiatric assistance, as needed. Usually, at this point all the client really needs is a confident, friendly and comforting voice who says, “Hold on, I’m on my way.”
You have to stay away from saying everything is going to be OK, because it isn’t and the client knows that at some level.
You also have to tell them, repeatedly, “don’t talk to anyone about what happened, except to me.”
Given the way the military has dealt with other cases, particularly with Sgt Wuterich and the Haditha massacre, there probably is a pretty good opportunity to negotiate a similar outcome for Sgt Bales.
You know how much our dear President loves to look forward . . .
I would be concerned about the military slamming that door shut, if I started trying the military in the media right now.
There will be a time and a place to play that card, but now is not that time.
John Henry probably is on his way to Leavenworth to meet with him.
Guess I’ll have to post a new article, since this one is about to roll off the conveyor belt.
Joint base Lewis-McChord is a troubled military base. It’s called a joint base because it consists of what used to be two separate bases adjoining each other on the south side of Tacoma, WA, which is 30 miles south of Seattle.
The two bases were McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis Army Base. Now they’ve been combined, which makes sense.
The base hospital is Madigan.
Here’s a link to a timeline of problems at the base starting after 9/11.
The Seattle Times published this timeline yesterday.
Interesting that you know Brown well.
The one CNN link foreshadowed any trial taking years; I can see that advantageous to the sergeant.
Oh; had a question about ‘the military slamming that door shut’, but I read those sentences again as a whole, and now I see what you’re getting at. Thanks for parsing it.
DISCLOSURE:
I represented a soldier stationed at Fort Lewis in the early 90s who was one of three people who pled guilty to participating in a quadruple homicide on the base.
The victims were a father and his three children. The father was not in the military. His wife, the mother of the their three children, was in the military and she was stationed in South Korea at the time. The father and their three children were living on the base at the time of the murders.
The murders were drug related and I wrote about the case in Long Slender Fingers at Easter.
Due to the non-military circumstances of the case, I do not believe I am biased in favor of or prejudiced against the Fort Lewis military base and its command structure. In fact, I know little about it.
After Panetta did the worst job anybody’s ever done at controlling the CIA, how did he get promoted?! Unanimous in the Senate?! Are they Crazy?!!
Don’t know the answer.
Not impressed with Panetta, but then I’m not impressed with and do not respect Obama or anyone else in his administration.
To the extent that I have an opinion about any of them it is negative.
Make that extremely negative.
What’s the term for intertwined, (virtually indistinguishable as separate) intelligence services and the military?
FUBAR or SNAFU, take your pick?
Here’s an article from the News Tribune, which serves south King County and Pierce County where Joint Base Lewis-McChord is located.
The article contains information about Sgt Bales regarding his prior criminal record that I have not seen elsewhere.
Would that term be the redundantly redone “Spiral Helix”?
Here’s an Op-Ed by Amy Goodman published in Truth Dig on March 14th.
The title is Terror, Trauma and the Endless Afghan War.
Here’s another report, dated yesterday, about a previously unreported murder of a U.S. Marine by an Afghan soldier at a joint Afghan/US base in SW Afghanistan.
He was shot in the head.
According to the report, he was the 7th US soldier murdered in the last 6 weeks by an Afghan soldier.
Everybody’s a comic this mornin’. I used one of my Lifelines to email for help on the term. Friend said:
‘WE-Are-SO-Fucked agency. WASF.’
Arrrggh! You guy, I swear. LOL!
Looks like the Afghan Army has unofficially declared war on the U.S. military.
Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it, to ‘stay the course?’
WTF!!!!!!!!!!
Looks like the ride is over and this blog is about to drop off the conveyor belt into Never Never Land.
Adieu!
Poof
See you next time.