Betrayed While Asleep, Afghan Police Die at Hands of Their Countrymen

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NY Times

By ROD NORDLAND

KABUL, Afghanistan — A wave of betrayal has left at least 17 Afghan policemen dead in the past 10 days — all killed in their sleep, at the hands of those close to them.

Early Thursday morning, an Afghan policeman unlocked the door of the check post where he was stationed in Oruzgan Province and let in his friends from the Taliban, who helped him attack his sleeping colleagues with knives and guns, eventually killing four and wounding eight.

On Sunday, a local police commander in a remote northern province, Jawzjan, shot to death, in their beds, five men under his command and fled to join the Taliban.

And on Dec. 18, a teenager, apparently being kept for sexual purposes by an Afghan border police commander in southern Kandahar Province, drugged the commander and the other 10 policemen at the post to put them to sleep, and then shot them all; eight died.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/world/asia/betrayed-while-they-sleep-afghan-police-are-dying-in-numbers.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043&_r=0

---

Rahmat Gul/Associated Press

A graduation ceremony for Afghan police officers in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Thursday. More Photos »

[iamthebandfanman]

1. hard to believe

with all those smiling happy faces in that picture :p

[Alamuti Lotus]

2. collaboration with foreign invaders lowers lifespan; film at 11.

and as an aside, that image projects the embodiment of "unsure".

[tonekat]

3. Should I be surprised?

This is pretty much biz as usual there, it seems.

[DeSwiss]

4. Betrayal.....

...as with all the worst human behaviors, is a learned one.



[center]



[/center]

[aquart]

7. Dear Lord, you think WE taught that region to kill?

Not even that blood-drenched monster Alexander the Great had the guts to take them on.

Do we teach NO history in our schools?

[DeSwiss]

10. If this were an Olympic event.....

...you'd win the gold for jumping to conclusions.

Have a nice day!

[daleo]

16. We didn't teach them killing

But we reinforced and enhanced their talent for killing, going back to the Soviet days, at least.

[pam4water]

5. It's the child that was kept as sex slave that was betrayed. Not his abusers.

You are not police if your are raping a child. Stupid title for the article.

[Alamuti Lotus]

6. it's NYT--what else would be expected.. *nt

[Ash_F]

12. Seriously, they just kinda threw that in there like we wouldn't notice.

I guess they could just left the sex slavery out and Americans wouldn't be the wiser.

There was a 60 Frontline documentary about this a few years ago

A short while later, one of the Manning leaks outed the fact that US contractors were involved in the child sex trade with the foreknowledge and enablement of State Department personel. But all they talk about on the news is how much of a "betrayer" he was too.

If these are the "good guys" the US government supports, no wonder people get fed and join the "bad guys".

[aquart]

8. They know the job is risky. But there are no other jobs.

No birth control either. So desperate families can spare a son or two who might be able to send some money home.

And every awful drone means an American soldier who wasn't asked to risk his life or his sanity.

Little girls pleading for their lives IN ENGLISH in a country that murders them for learning to read is a joke.

[nauthiz]

11. Umm its Pakistan a former English colony

A lot of people speak English there. They wrote the sign in English because they're obviously trying to reach Americans. The country doesn't murder them for it, the Taliban does. Malala got an outpouring of support from most of Pakistan and will probably be studying in England.

The drones don't even get the people they're designed to get half the time, maybe even less. The U.S. just acts as an intermediary assassination squad. Same thing with the night raids, where soldiers murdered innocent men in their beds next to their wives because they received a call from someone suspected to be Taliban and nothing more. If you're not prepared to send your own men to do the job right, don't do it at all. We're no better than the Taliban because of our drones.

And people like you on a Democratic website that are no better than a neocon thug.

[aquart]

13. Uh huh. The borders are pretty artificial and Taliban move back and forth.

Pakistan is a nuclear power. DO YOU REALLY THINK WE DON'T HAVE PERMISSION FOR THOSE DRONES?

Thanks for calling me a thug for acknowledging that super powers do bad things. I'd rather belong to the super power than a nation with no power.

Military fuck-ups are the essence of reality. I PREFER THE FUCK-UP THAT KILLS THE FEWEST AMERICANS.

How many Pakistanis do you think would be dead if we had sent in troops? Oh, I'm sorry, you want a perfect world.

Me, I want out of there. Let Russia, China, and India kill them. It's their neighborhood. Why should we be their mercenaries?

We're there because Russia, China and India do not want war with America. If we leave, the grab begins.

Cry over the little dead children. It's sad. Will you cry as much when they die by the millions? Will you insist we intervene?

In that region, they are experts at killing each other. We're amateurs by comparison.

[Resonance_Chamber]

9. Just another mess created by the USA to obtain the resources of another country

What is the problem, the Taliban is doing EXACTLY what we trained them to.

Even Saint Ronnie called them hero’s and no different than the Founding Fathers!

The Taliban is a creation of US Policy in the Middle East.

At some point we are going to have to work with them again, killing em only creates more of them.

[aquart]

14. WE created the Taliban? Now that is colonial arrogance.

Those dumb brown people need white guys in suits or they can't do a damn thing.

How about they took advantage of the training we gave and cleverly used it for their own purposes?

[Resonance_Chamber]

17. Yes the Taliban who were the former Mujahidin we trained to fight the USSR

[aquart]

15. Meantime, China is moving in with contracts and bulldozers.

Without spending a dime on a bullet.