Tag Archives: Helmand Province

Breaking Faith With Our Military

Posted on by

The Obama Administration has not been good to our military. They have quietly reduced the medical benefits and the savings in the commissaries and exchanges. They have reduced the effectiveness of our military by putting women in combat. (In September USA Today reported that a study done by the Marines showed that all-male ground combat units were more effective than teams that included women.) Ignoring the results of that study will cost American soldiers lives. Another problem is the Obama Administration’s ignoring some of the corruption among the leaders in Afghanistan. That corruption directly cost the lives of three Marines in Helmand Province in 2012.

The Marine officer who tried to warn his fellow Marines about a possible Taliban conspirator is now being forced out of the Marines. The Marine Corps Times posted an article about the case yesterday.

The article reports:

A Marine veteran in Congress has called on the country’s top law enforcement agency to investigate a senior Navy official’s decision to force out a Marine officer who tried to warn his comrades in Afghanistan about a suspected Taliban conspirator.

In a Dec. 3 letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said the FBI should look into the case involving Maj. Jason Brezler, a Reserve civil affairs officer who sent classified information from a personal email account in 2012.

Scott Lutterloh, the acting assistant Navy secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, recently upheld the decision that Brezler be honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. But Hunter said Brezler’s case received “inadequate attention by the Department of Defense Inspector General and Navy criminal investigators.”

In his letter, Hunter urged the Pentagon to take steps to launch an FBI investigation of the case, to include the U.S. military’s relationship with Sarwar Jan, a corrupt Afghan police chief and the man at the center of Brezler’s email warning.

The full explanation of the events surrounding Major Brezler is posted here.

As I view these events, I am reminded of the number of classified emails on Mrs. Clinton’s private server. There seems to be a double standard here. I am also disgusted that our troops are not taking action against pedophilia on our military bases in Afghanistan. I understand that pedophilia is part of the Muslim Afghanistan culture, but it is a value that we as Americans cannot condone.

 

The New York Times Finally Gets Around To This Story

Posted on by

On August 19th, I posted a story about one consequence of American policy in Afghanistan. The American policy is to ignore the practice of pedophelia that is common among Afghani men. The New York Times is finally telling the story in an article posted today.

The article details some of the aspects of the death of Lance Corporal Gregory Buckley Jr.:

The father of Lance Corporal Buckley believes the policy of looking away from sexual abuse was a factor in his son’s death, and he has filed a lawsuit to press the Marine Corps for more information about it.

Lance Corporal Buckley and two other Marines were killed in 2012 by one of a large entourage of boys living at their base with an Afghan police commander named Sarwar Jan.

Mr. Jan had long had a bad reputation; in 2010, two Marine officers managed to persuade the Afghan authorities to arrest him following a litany of abuses, including corruption, support for the Taliban and child abduction. But just two years later, the police commander was back with a different unit, working at Lance Corporal Buckley’s post, Forward Operating Base Delhi, in Helmand Province.

Lance Corporal Buckley had noticed that a large entourage of “tea boys” — domestic servants who are sometimes pressed into sexual slavery — had arrived with Mr. Jan and moved into the same barracks, one floor below the Marines. He told his father about it during his final call home.

The article reports Lance Corporal Buckley’s final call home:

“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

…When asked about American military policy, the spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, wrote in an email: “Generally, allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan military or police personnel would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law.” He added that “there would be no express requirement that U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan report it.” An exception, he said, is when rape is being used as a weapon of war.

We are supporting people in Afghanistan who are as evil as the Taliban. I think it is time to either uphold basic morality and do what we can to change the culture in regard to child sexual abuse or get out. I really don’t see how anyone with a conscience can look the other way when this behavior is going on.

The Cost Of Releasing Prisoners From Guantanamo

Posted on by

Most of the political left has argued for years that the prison at Guantanamo is a recruiting tool for terrorists. Never mind that 9/11 happened before Guantanamo–that is their story and they are sticking to it. In keeping with the idea of closing Guantanamo (but not actually closing Guantanamo) President Obama has not sent anyone there and is releasing prisoners a few at a time to any country he can bribe to take them. So what happens to these prisoners?

Judicial Watch posted a story today about one Guantanamo alumni. Mullah Abdul Rauf has been busy since his release in 2007 (under President Bush–before Obama).

The article reports:

…he’s (Mullah Abdul Rauf) operating in Helmand province, actively recruiting fighters for ISIS. Citing local sources, a British newspaper writes that Rauf set up a base and is offering good wages to anyone willing to fight for the Islamic State. Rauf was a corps commander during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports. After getting captured by U.S. forces, he was sent to Gitmo in southeast Cuba but was released in 2007.

Rauf’s Department of Defense Joint Task Force Guantanamo file describes him as being closely associated with several senior level Taliban commanders and leaders. It also says that Rauf admitted involvement in the production and sales of opium as well as associations with criminal elements within the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. From the file: “Due to recent findings that detainee may have had a more important role within the Taliban than previously thought detainee’s intelligence value has been updated from low to medium due to his possible knowledge of: (1) Taliban leadership, (2) Taliban command and control.”

Rauf is one of a number of Gitmo terrorists who have returned to the fight after getting released, yet Obama continues freeing captives to keep his campaign promise of closing the prison. Just this week he let four Yemenis go, despite the risk that they will likely join Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based terror group that claimed responsibility for last week’s attack in France. In fact, dozens of freed Gitmo detainees have rejoined Al Qaeda in Yemen, the country where the 2009 Christmas Day airline bomber proudly trained. In 2010 Judicial Watch reported that a number of high-ranking Al Qaeda militants in Yemen—once held at Gitmo—may have been involved in a sophisticated scheme to send bombs on a U.S.-bound cargo plane.

Traditionally, prisoners-of-war are released after the war is over. The people at Guantanamo are not technically prisoners-of-war–they are enemy combatants and therefore do not have prisoner-of war status. At any rate, I don’t think the war is over, and why should we release them to kill American soldiers?

Child Abuse

Posted on by

The Blaze posted a story today about a ten-year old girl who was going to be a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. She had been fitted with a suicide vest and prepared for her mission when her brother instructed her to swim across a river to get to her target, a border police checkpoint in Helmand province. She refused to cross the water because it was cold, at which point her brother took her back home where she was beaten by her father. She then ran away from home and surrendered to police the following morning.

This is the YouTube interview:

Where does she go to get her childhood back after that incident? She is a beautiful child growing up in a very ugly culture.

Enhanced by Zemanta

This Really Bothers Me

Posted on by

I have supported the war in Afghanistan. I believed that we needed to go in and clean out the Taliban and Al Qaeda. I am disappointed that we have not been willing to commit the manpower to do so and that the rules of engagement have prevented us from doing so. I am now at the point where I think the only time we should send our military anywhere is when we arm them to the teeth and tell them to take no hostages. Well, I really must be in the minority on that one.

The UK Telegraph reported today that American soldiers were barred from bringing guns into a talk given by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

The article reports:

Around 200 troops who had gathered in a tent at Camp Leatherneck were told “something had come to light” and asked abruptly to file outside and lay down their automatic rifles and 9mm pistols.

“Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy – we just adjust,” said the sergeant who was told to clear the hall of weapons.

Major General Mark Gurganus later said he gave the order because Afghan troops attending the talk were unarmed and he wanted the policy to be consistent for all.

This is just not smart. What would have happened if there had been an attack on the base at that particular moment? Now we are sending our soldiers into harm’s way and taking their guns away. Whoever made that decision should immediately be relieved of his command.

Enhanced by Zemanta