U.S. Army Spc. Aaron Blasingame, from 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 5th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, provides rear security inside a Stryker armored vehicle during a combat mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on Jan. 15, 2010. The Army uses the Stryker in its day-to-day operations because of its unique combination of maneuverability and firepower. DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Efren Lopez, U.S. Air Force.
This was just released from DOD. Rumors of this review have been out, but of course they have kept a tight lid on it and its contents.
Army Secretary Releases Wanat Investigation Statement
Secretary of the Army John McHugh today released the following statement after receiving the U.S. Central Command investigation results regarding the combat action involving U.S. Army forces at Wanat, Afghanistan, on July 13, 2008. Nine U.S. Army soldiers were killed and 27 were wounded during that battle. “I have directed the commander of U.S. Army Forces Command, Gen. Charles Campbell, to review the recommendations and take action as he deems appropriate with regard to Army personnel identified in the report within 90 days.
“We remain in close contact with the families of our fallen from this battle, and they will be invited to a comprehensive briefing on the investigation following Gen. Campbell’s actions. “We must be an Army that is committed to continuous self-assessment and improvement. Analysis of this investigation’s findings provides us the opportunity to better ensure we are doing everything possible to safeguard the lives and treasure entrusted to us while ensuring mission success.”
The Army will defer public release of any further information on the matter until families have been briefed on findings and any action taken. Media may contact Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, 703-697-2564, or christopher.garver@us.army.mil .
I have written on here several times about Man-Love Thursdays, the confusion that Afghan men have with sexuality and the rampant number of homosexuals there are amongst the Afghan male population. I have also had many people ask me if there was any truth to the term “man-love Thursday”.
One of my first blogs that mentioned this is called ” Their Thursday night is our Saturday night “. I wrote this one in July 2006. I have also wrote about this several other times over the years.
Well in case you didn’t believe me or anyone else who has been to Afghanistan and talked about it, here is your chance to believe an MSM outlet.
The story below is pretty educating, as it shines some light on “how” afghan men can justify this practice in their own mind. I mean I have heard the term “selective compliance”, but being a supposed religious man who’s faith says homosexuality is a terrible sin, but still being able to practice it is well….pretty selective in my book.
Apparently, according to the report, Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot “love” another man — but that doesn’t mean they can’t use men for “sexual gratification.”
So it is all how you interpret it I guess. They say “perception is reality” and in this case I guess Afghan men don’t perceive themselves as homosexuals, so they aren’t. It is all how you justify it in your mind. When we would talk to our Afghan Army counterparts about why two men are snuggling together in a bed or why the Kandak Commander keeps young boys with him all the time, they commonly say it is ok because they are “deployed away from home”. I guess it doesn’t matter that for some “home” is only a few hours drive away and they get there at least every two months.
In a blog written by my former ETT teammate and guest Blogger on my site, The Dude. He wrote about men having a hard time understanding why his wife can’t get pregnant. That blog titled ” Can You Look At My Wife? ” was written in May, 2009. If you read that, then the statement below from the story should be no surprise.
The U.S. army medic also told members of the research unit that she and her colleagues had to explain to a local man how to get his wife pregnant.
The report said: “When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked, ‘How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.’”
You can read the whole story at the link below and see for yourself what Man-Love Thursday is all about.
www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/28/afghan-men-struggle-sexual-identity-study-finds/
Enshala My Friends
Bouhammer
U.S. Army Spc. Luis Cabrales, with 8th Squadron, Bear Troop, 1st Cavalry Regiment, provides medical aid to an injured Afghan National Police officer near Dabaray, Afghanistan, on Jan. 3, 2010.  DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Francisco V. Govea II, U.S. Air Force.
I saw the story below over the weekend. It is textbook Taliban TTP 101. The story below took place in the QaraBaug district. A place I know all too well as I spent several months there in 2006. This is a very small but not always a overly-friendly area. However these fake allegations of coalition forces murdering civilians is as old a trick as they come. The enemy forces persuade and force the locals to make these fake allegations all the time. I saw it first hand when we killed true threats and enemies to us, yet there would always be some group that claimed we killed some innocent person.
I understand they will make these claims, but I don’t understand why supposed reputable MSM organizations don’t put that caveat somewhere in the stories. A caveat that would highlight the fact that these accusations are usually unfounded and typically found to be exaggerated or completely untrue.
I love this quote in the article:
“All those killed were definitely Taliban,” he said. The boy, he said, was 13, but he, too, was Taliban.
It highlights that yes, sometimes kids are killed by coalition forces, but when those kids are acting on behalf of the enemy and trying to harm or kill our forces they are acceptable targets to be eliminated.
KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. and Afghan soldiers swooped into a village in a Taliban-heavy district early Thursday, fired their guns and came away. And in a scene repeated often in Afghanistan, one side cried murder and the other side claimed success.
Late Thursday, this much was clear: Just after midnight, a team of soldiers launched an operation to detain a Taliban commander named Qari Faizullah in a village called Baran. The village is in the Qara Bagh district of Ghazni province, where the Taliban insurgency burns hot. Four males, including a boy, were killed in the raid, and another was detained.
There the clarity ends. The U.S. command said four insurgents had been killed in the operation. Faizullah, the Americans said, was a “high-level Taliban commander” who helped lead attacks against U.S. forces and smuggled fighters and guns.
The boy killed, the Americans said, was 15 and had reached for a gun and shown “hostile intent.” “No innocent Afghan civilians were harmed in this operation,” the command said.
The police chief of Ghazni province, Gen. Kial Baz Shirzai, supported the U.S. account. “All those killed were definitely Taliban,” he said. The boy, he said, was 13, but he, too, was Taliban.
Several residents of Baran said all the dead were civilians, and about 500 Afghans went to the provincial capital, Ghazni, to retrieve the bodies, which had been carried there by the soldiers. The villagers shouted anti-U.S. and anti-government slogans and called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to stop the attacks. In addition to those killed, two villagers were wounded, villagers said.
“I have known all these people since my childhood, and they are civilians; they have no link to the Taliban or any militant group,” Abdul Manan, a Baran resident, said in a telephone interview. He joined the protest.
Muhib Khapalwak, the local governor of Qara Bagh, said he would investigate.
Operations like the one in Qara Bagh — night raids in which the course of events is unclear — occur regularly in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban dominate.
But night operations are unpopular among Afghans. U.S. commanders have acknowledged the unhappiness; they have made protecting Afghan civilians their primary goal in the war. The Americans said recently they would tighten the rules governing night operations. Under the new rules, U.S. and other NATO forces would be required to explore alternatives, such as cordoning villages at night and moving in at sunrise.
KABUL, Afghanistan, January 22/PRNewswire/ — TS2 Satellite Technologies company is introducing new broadband services on Eutelsat EB4 & W6 satellites to the Afghan market.
These types of telecommunication products are mainly used by the companies that execute contracts in Asia, as well as by the soldiers that are stationed in Afghanistan. Purchased bands gives TS2 unlimited possibilities of configuration and setting any telecommunication connections from the Near East region and South-Western Asia.
The broadband service offers two-way high-speed Internet access with no phone lines, no cable, no dial-up modem. It’s always online, available virtually anywhere, and affordable. The offered satellite system is ideally suited for broadband requirements such as Internet and VPN access to enterprise networks, as well as real-time VoIP and video conferencing.
The Internet connection can be shared with other users via wireless or wired network. Most soldiers deploy with a laptop in hand and a hookup to the Internet in their barracks. This is especially important for the many who are married, and have young children. The Internet access has resulted in major morale improvements. Troops no longer feel cut off from home.
Not all the Internet connectivity is just for staying in touch with the folks back home. The troops inAfghanistan use the Internet a lot for professional tasks, and not all of them are official business. Some troops blog, and many other stay in touch with military friends and associates in other parts of the world. The Internet has made possible many online communities composed of military professionals.
Without the new satellite system, large numbers of soldiers will be without regular communications for much or most of their time in Afghanistan. The infrastructure is spartan to non-existent.
More information on www.ts2.pl/en/Internet-in-Iraq-and-Afghanistan
The great guys over at Free Range International have done a great job laying out exactly what happened in the Kabul attack on Jan 18th. My blog was down at that time so I really could not write up anything. However after talking to my contacts in country, the general feeling was that it was little more than a PR event for the Taliban. They sacrificed seven of their own fighters, and murdered some innocent civilians all to try and put on a show for the world. Their intent was to appear that they could mount a successful attack anytime they wanted to, right in the heart of the capital.
However, Babatim over at FRI spells it out pretty clear that was a poorly planned and executed attack, in the posting Amateur Hour. He also reveals some other parts of the attack most people don’t know about, like the attempted rocket attack that failed when the gunner was too stupid to check what we call “mask and overhead clearance”, which means he didn’t look up to see he would be firing into a tree.
Check out the whole story at freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=2531
