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September 16, 2012

Six US GIs have been killed since Friday in a conflict Mitt Romney says is just a ‘word, four this morning, shot dead by an Afghan soldier during a firefight with insurgents in a remote area in the southern part of the country.
One aspect of this horror show is getting worse: It was the third attack by Afghan forces or insurgents disguised in military uniforms against international forces in as many days, killing eight troops in all.
Yesterday, two UK troops in the Helmand district were killed by a supposedly Afghan security officer,  and on Friday, insurgents wearing U.S. Army uniforms attacked a British air base, killing two American Marines, wounding nine other people and destroying six Harrier fighter jets.

(Illustration found here).

An insidious situation, so far this year 51 foreign GIs have been killed in “insider” attacks in Afghanistan — the quickly-morphing ‘Green-on-Blue‘ incidents — now combine an all-out, no-holds-barred Taliban insurgency with that YouTubed conflagration, and this way-way-too-long war appears going to bad-shit fast.
Consider the incident this morning.
From Reuters:

Four troops were found dead and two wounded when a response team arrived at the scene from a nearby checkpoint, a spokesman for the coalition said.
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the four dead were Americans.
One of the six members of the Afghan National Police (ANP) operating the observation post with six coalition troops was also found dead, while the other five had disappeared.
“The fighting had stopped by the time the responders arrived,” said Major Adam Wojack, a spokesman for the NATO-led coalition.

My underline: Emphasis on this turn-about in the Afghan war — not just the crazy Taliban, but all of Islam, if the tremor is allowed to go that far.
Five out of six Afghan police with that massacred unit apparently were in on the operation, or allowed it to happen — the incident occurred at a checkpoint, and news reports indicate some confusion — some insurgents had attacked the checkpoint, the Afghan guys called the US guys to come help, apparently once the Americans got there, one guy shoots the Americans, shoots the bad Afghan guy, then he and the other four Afghan guys simply vanish.
And what happened to the insurgents attacking the checkpoint?
The narrative carries few details — from the BBC: Senior Afghan officials said one suspected policeman had died in the attack and five had gone missing since. It was not clear whether the five were involved in the attack or had fled fearing they would be held responsible.
WTF — and it’s a horrible mess.

And to make matters even worse, a NATO airstrike in Laghman province  also this morning killed eight women and girls who had gone out before dawn to gather firewood:

Villagers from a remote part of Laghman’s Alingar district drove the bodies, covered in white blankets, to the provincial capital, Mehterlam.
“They were shouting ‘Death to America!’ They were condemning the attack,” said Laghman provincial government spokesman Sarhadi Zewak.

Pretty-much time to end this over-drawn escapade, but most-likely the US is stuck there at least another two years.
And like a shitload of other stuff nowadays, it’s only going to get worse and then worser.

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