This guy wakes up this morning. Puts on some salwar kamees or Man Jams. Man Jams being the colloquial term for the local fashion of the region. They’re called Man Jams because they look like pajamas for men. I own a couple of pair and they
are comfortable. This Insane Idiot grabs his rifle and walks off the base. I guess when he woke up this morning, He shit, showered and shaved. Drank a cup of coffee. Then he stood up and thought; “Fuck, I’m gonna go kill me some motherfuckers…” and strolls on off the base.
A few minutes later, he’s in the middle of
Panjwayi District. The Dude starts shooting civilians. The rumor is that he may have wounded or killed
up to16 victims. One rumor has him walking house to house. Shooting victims in their beds. That’s the nature of war and rumors. Every iteration grows in violence and strangeness. We’ll have to wait for the real story and casualty count. Once he’s finished, he walks back to the base and turns his rifle and himself in and tells his command what he’s done and that he’s crazy. He thinks that he should be sent home. The amazing thing is that he was able to walk off the base, kill several people and walk away unopposed and unnoticed. No one seems to have known that anything was amiss UNTIL this guy tells them what he’s done. No one had a clue. WTF!
Everything is calm. There are no tires burning. No protests or demonstrations of which I am aware despite the photos in the attached
media links. I’m sure that most people aren’t even aware of it. Most of the Afghans who are even aware that something occurred probably still think it was a local bandit. The rest of Afghanistan is most certainly clueless about the event entirely.
BUT! The US has released the information on the shooting to the local representatives of the international press. The local press, of course, is printing the news all over the wires and the internets. I’ve seen links from media in Pakistan (of course), Indonesia, the AP, Reuters and several others popping up over the last few hours.
It was insane what this guy did. It was more insane to have released what he did to all points North, South, East and West. This should have been kept on the down low.
This guy opened up the potential for many, many deaths. His actions were onerous. His actions were heinous. He killed innocent people for no reason other than he was mentally imbalanced. Someone should have caught that and that soldier should not have been here.
The one thing that is not really being discussed is that this kid is supposedly from the same unit where two soldiers were killed during the Qu’ran Burning Intifada over the last couple of weeks. I’m sure that is what put the kid over the edge. He’s here trying to make Afghanistan safe. Afghans who are supposed to be our allies are murdering us over a couple of burnt books. Quite a few Coalition Soldiers are angry that Afghans turned on us in such a manner. There’s a lot of mission burn out over the Qu’ran Burning incident. Not because the Qu’rans were burned but because Afghan Soldiers went native and started shooting at us and Civilians were so vocal thanks to the press about Americans “disrespecting Islam.” Most of the Coalition goes out of their way to “respect” Islam. We’ve spent Billions on this place. We’ve shed blood in this place. The Taliban is constantly murdering Afghans and no one bats an eye over it. Americans burn a few copies of the Qu’ran and it’s a mad house. Nah, I doubt that has anything to do with this.
But was it a mad house? Were the demonstrations truly nation wide? What percentage of the population protested and demonstrated? From what I could tell, less than 1% of the population demonstrated over the burnt Qu’rans. That same week of the Qu’ran burnings, I had an Afghan Officer tell me that “we have to pray that the Americans do not leave us.” The press, though, made it seem as though the country was being over run with protestors and demonstrations were being held in every city, town, hamlet, borough and village. The media, of course, lies and sensationalizes to sell advertising space or their agenda.
The US Department of State and the US Department of Defense are equally insane for having released the news of the shooting incident. Lives are at stake here. Not theoretical lives. Real lives. The potential for blood loss from a reaction to this is massive. Of course, the media will sensationalize any reaction. They’ll sit at the Serena Hotel or the Safi Landmark Hotel in their comfy chairs and loveseats and type out little white lies and no one will call them on it.
But! I suppose that if we didn’t release the news in a timely manner, there was no way that we could have sent a swift and appropriately groveling apology for the incident to that thief Hamid Karzai.
The plus side of this, potentially, is that these were people who were killed. Mere humans. Political pawns to be played for sure. They weren’t Qu’rans. Many Afghans probably won’t bat an eyelash. They’re inured to violence unless riled up by the local Mullah with a bone to pick. Especially if it was mostly women who were killed. No proper Afghan cares about the lives of women. Especially if they’re past their breeding prime or if they haven’t squeezed out a few boys by the time they’re seventeen. If they were little girls who were killed, many, if not most, Afghans won’t care much either.
Thankfully, the guy didn’t kill any donkeys or goats. Then we’d have a real problem on our hands.
I’ve seen donkey deaths cause instant mini-riots. I’ve seen Afghans shrug off the death of a little girl like it was a fly that had just been swatted. These two incidents occurred on the Jalalabad Road. Little Girl gets hit by a car. They pulled the body off of the street and carried her away. A donkey got hit and the owner went crazy. The crowd grew dangerous and started throwing objects. Both times, it was the French. They seemed to be prone to these kinds of incidents back in ’05 and ’06.
Since no Qu’rans or livestock were involved, many Afghans will probably give this incident little notice. Of course, the Afghan politicians (THUGS) will use it to soak us for more money and to show their influence by having Obama and the various ISAF Generals break dance with more groveling apologetic acrobats. After all, the Coalition funding at their disposal to embezzle is slowly drying up as we near 2014. The Afghan Parliamentarians, Ministers and Generals need issues like this so they might better fund their retirements.
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I don’t want another war. We may never get out of sending our young to die over there. Some short thinking devil will drop a nuke and the biggest mistake will have started. And it won’t just be over there.