2 U.S. troops killed in Koran backlash

[Eugene]

Source: CBS News

February 23, 2012 6:54 AM

2 U.S. troops killed in Koran backlash

(CBS News) Updated at 7:55 a.m. Eastern.

Two U.S. troops have been shot to death and four more wounded by an Afghan solider who turned his gun on his allies in apparent anger over the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, an Afghan official tells CBS News.

A statement from the International Security Assistance Force - Afghanistan, the international coalition in the country, confirmed that two troops were killed in Eastern Afghanistan on Thursday by "an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform."

ISAF does not typically give the nationality of casualties until family members have been notified, but the CBS News source in the Afghan government said those killed and injured in the attack in the eastern Ningarhar province, along the border with Pakistan, were Americans.

The source also said the shooting appeared to be motivated by the burning of Korans at the sprawling U.S. Bagram air base, north of Kabul, but he did not provide additional details as to what led him to that conclusion.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57383420/2-u.s-troops-killed-in-koran-backlash/

[barbtries]

1. why are we there?

someone remind me because i don't think it's worth it.

[zipplewrath]

3. <Sigh>

Unfortunately, I suspect we are still there because of a political calculation. Biden recommended that we vastly reduce our presence, focus on Pakistan, and conduct most operations from limited bases in the south, or even from Naval vessels. Obama didn't take that recommendation, but instead gave the DoD an opportunity to do some counter insurgency activity. Thing is, he didn't give them nearly everything they wanted. Not even close really. Mostly he limited their time, about 1.5 years instead of the better part of a decade they wanted.

The question is then left, why that choice? Not many folks, Biden included, thought that much could be accomplished in 18 months. After 18 months, Obama wanted a draw down, but what does that accomplish if the primary mission hasn't been anywhere near completed? Certainly he wasn't drawing on any experience from Iraq where it took the better part of 5 years, in a country moderately more stable, to develop any kind of internal army/police/security force. So what plan was he executing and what was going to define success?

It appears it was calculated to be to keep the NATO troops around as long as he could, leading into the 2012 elections at least, and to be able to campaign on having been "tough" on the folks that brought us 9/11 while also being able to show a draw down leading into the campaign. He has done a very good job of protecting his "right" so to speak. He executed the Bush SOFA and kept around Gates to do it, along with Patreaus. This has protected him well from the McCain/Lieberman chickenhawk right side. They could squawk, but they had a hard time separating out Obama from Bush in any criticism. He killed OBL. You can't miss how they use that to protect their "right". And they've kept the taliban out of power in Afgahnistan. They don't have much success to show in Afghanistan, but they are still in a NATO mission, we are drawing down, and that's about all anyone here cares about. He can do the whole "he kept us safe" schtick and neutralize the GOP criticism in the up coming election. We haven't seen a democratic incombant, much less candidate, with this well protected "right flank" in a very long time.

It is notable that he is getting vastly more criticism from his Iran policy, where he's actualy had more progress and success than Bush, not to mention attacks over his Israel support, which isn't particulary weak, even in comparison to Bush.

The question I have is once he's re-elected what does he do then? He can continue to draw down, but it is almost assured that the situation will get worse there. Heck, things are getting worse in Iraq and they were vastly more stable. He can try to stand pat, but he's going to lose all of his NATO allies by 2016. Or he can pull out, and the Taliban will almost assuredly take control again. They probably won't be the threat they were, but it will vastly complicate the relationship with Pakistan.

And will he carve out a policy based upon protecting the next Democratic candidate, or will he leave a huge mess for his successor to handle?

[Nevernose]

27. I agree that politics play a major role in the decisions

And quite probably far more than they should.

The military, however, has already had "the better part of a decade." The powers that be have lied and lied again about how we've fared over there, and there is no way we could have ever won over there. To blame Obama for "not giving them everything they needed" is crap. We lost, and we didn't lose because of a lack of effort. We lost because we got beat. It's time to just admit that, bring our troops home, and hope for the best. The Taliban will be back no matter what.

[DeSwiss]

21. We're there for the.....

rare earths.



- And to try and keep China away from them.....

[Muskypundit]

22. Except that china owns most of the mines in Afghanistan.

So we failed terribly if that was the mission.

[DeSwiss]

23. China doesn't ''own'' the mines.....

...they (along with India) have signed the first leases with the first rights to develop and extract oil, natural gas and copper.

- So far.....

[KG]

2. winnin' them hearts and minds!

[LeftinOH]

4. Fuckall. TEN years into this mess, and we still don't know

how to avoid this kind of crisis? The Bagram base has serious 'containment' problems when it comes to preventing controversial information from becoming public knowledge.

[slackmaster]

5. Mr. President, bring all of our troops home NOW!

[mainer]

6. Military needs to crack down on idiocy

Burn a Koran, land in the brig. How hard is that to understand?

[denverbill]

7. The entire military command structure needs some reeducation, IMO.

The kids in the military need to be drilled to RESPECT other cultures and religions. Instead the military is so deeply engrained with right-wing Christianity and American exceptionalism they see other religions and cultures little different than the Spanish saw the native Americans: as backwards savages.

IMO, the military is incapable of changing in that fashion. They are completely unsuited to 'nation-building' and never will be.

[ieoeja]

8. What is the proper means of disposal of a Koran? n/t

[slackmaster]

9. Proper disposal for a worn Koran is to ceremonially burn it, to save it from senseless worship.

[ieoeja]

10. Sort of like the US flag then.

When I was younger I occasionally recovered flags thrown out as trash and brought them to an American Legion for proper disposal. Or just threw it into our own burn barrel next time I was burning trash.

You would think intent would matter to these people. Burning {insert revered object here} in protest generally pisses off people who get worked up over silly shit like that. Sloppy disposal usually does not.

Unless you *want* to be pissed off. Then you can make it our FAUX Outrage Du Jour. Rightist extremists in the US and Islamists extremists in Afghanistan seem to have a lot in common.

[Gringostan]

12. They do have a lot in common

They do have a lot in common and both can be equally irrational; the difference is that we are occupying their country. We need to come home and deal with the right wing extremist here in America.

[Igel]

26. With one exception.

Imagine an American flag owned by a racist and scrawled with something like "wetbacks go home".

You throw it away. It's been defiled not by your actions but by the actions of the hateful SOB who did the scrawling.

But then what if supporters of the sanctity of the American flag overlook the vile, hateful message scrawled on it and say, "You're desecrating the flag!"

In defending the flag, they defend the hate. That, I think, is what many if not most here would say. I'd certainly say it.

In defending the Koran, the Afghans involved are defending the hate.

A nice double standard comes into play. They're so inferior that we have two standards--one for them, one for us. We're superior. We can denounce those like us, especially if it's for the principle of personal political gain (the official term for this is "altruism&quot .

So why are we there?

Because we can't accept how much they're nothing but hateful losers that really deserved to be ruled by a bunch of medieval theocrats. It's a losing proposition. We don't need to build a nation. Nation-building is pointless. We need to build a mentality. That takes generations.

We should do the culturally sensitive thing: Let them continue to oppress their kids and women, to avoid anything that smacks of the 1600s or any time later. They try to shame us, we show that we're not weaker than they are by doing the culturally appropriate thing and decimating a large swathe of their territory. Then, if they bother us just flatten some random villages in acts of culturally appropriate and acceptable violence. Somebody based on their soil attacks an American, open the gates of hell on their cities, towns, villages, or clan-based compounds. If others of the "best nation" complain, say that those killed were espousing jahiliyya and encouraging fitna, find somebody to say that their blood was permitted.

[denverbill]

13. Ask an Imam.

If you can't be bothered to do that, ship the whole lot back to the US and burn it here. You don't throw it on a junk heap in front of people you should know by now would find it offensive.

[liberal N proud]

11. None of these troops probably had anything to do with the original incident

[morningfog]

16. A lot of the people the US has killed were collateral damage, too.

I'm not justifying or supporting the rage and killings, just pointing to our duality and hypocrisy in the country we have occupied for over a decade. After a decade of torture, summary execution, civilian killings, desecration of bodies, kids being bombed, night time raids, etc, etc, etc.....

Each new offense is a log on the fire. Targets of the rage will be those who represent the occupier.

[liberal N proud]

20. Yep: Each new offense is a log on the fire

[Journeyman]

19. Nor were Kristian Menchaca, Thomas Tucker, or David Babineau involved. . .

in the murder of the family in Mahmudiyah and the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza, and yet, when incensed relatives and neighbors set out to exact retribution from U.S. Army troops for this atrocity, those three soldiers had the misfortune to be the first found.

Actions have consequences. And the more shocking the act the more irrational the consequences can be.

[Igel]

24. There's a long and proud tradition of collective guilt and punishment.

It's only wrong when the wrong people do it or the wrong people are punished.


Otherwise it's simply grand and glorious.

If punished, the "wrong people" are first and foremost the group that the judges are in; secondarily are those they empathize with.

If punishers, the wrong people are first and foremost anybody other than the group that the judges are in and, secondarily, those they empathize with.

There's a really important principle there, but some truths can't be said in furtherance of the true Truth.

[KG]

14. NPR, continuing it's usual policy to protect TPTB, keep referring to them as 'NATO troops'

[Taverner]

15. Maybe I'm crazy, but why are they angrier about a stupid book than the thousands we've killed?

Oh that's right, the Koran is hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[morningfog]

17. I don't know for certain, but I don;t think it can be separated.

There have been many riots in the past decade against US atrocities. This is just the latest offense. Just because lives were lost in this rage, doesn't mean there is more anger over it than the torture, death and desecration of innocents. This is just the latest opportunity for the anger to come to a head.

[Taverner]

18. Consider Gitmo - no one in the muslim world protested the atrocities that took place

But when they found out the Koran was tauntingly sullied, hoo boy, the religious nuts wanted blood

This is yet another reason why religion is morally bankrupt

[jzodda]

25. We need to leave and much quicker than the end of 2013

Even though I was happy that the President announced we are leaving ahead of schedule I think we need to make that the end or middle of this year and not wait.

They obviously hate us there with high ranking members of the gov, their parliament and their corrupt president that we installed calling us invaders.

When the people you are their to help and protect start thinking of you as the enemy its time to get out!