Really disturbing news out of Afghanistan that may be being overlooked with all the Presidential election news going on. The New York Times reported in August that the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan has more than doubled since Pres. Obama took office.
From Michael Yon:
"Afghan forces are infested with Taliban suicide killers. Two more "green-on-blue" attacks have occurred in the last few days, killing six more troops.
Days ago, the Taliban executed an audacious attack on Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan where Prince Harry is stationed. Under darkness without moon, at least fifteen attackers breached the wire, killed two U.S. Marines, and wounded numerous other people.
They badly damaged two jets and destroyed six more Harriers with a reported price tag of about $30 million each. The Harriers are no longer produced. This is not the way our force should be downsized. This loss is reportedly affecting ground operations.
The enemy also destroyed or damaged other facilities. In addition to lives lost, the total destruction could easily tally $200 million."
Michael's piece is about the real possibility that Prince Harry could be targeted and killed while in Afghanistan. The story for the U.S. is pretty chilling. Michael goes on to explain how Afghanistan is covered in Opium, giving us not only killers, but drug addled killers.
"This was 2006 and most people believed that the Afghanistan war had been won, though clearly it was going badly. Please see the dispatch Dasht-e-Margo.
More than six years later, the area remains hostile. Open warfare continues, and we just permitted the Taliban to destroy about $200 million dollars' worth of assets. Short of digging an epic tunnel, there is no way to approach Bastion unseen. The Taliban still managed to breach what should have been one of the most heavily guarded military facilities in the world. Someone needs to be fired.
Many wonder how the enemy could have conducted reconnaissance for the airfield attack. This war is mature and more than eleven years old. The Afghan military is infested with Taliban, not to mention the Afghan workers on the bases.
As for current and granular imagery of Camp Bastion and other bases, commercial flights come in from various directions, including from Dubai. Big-T Taliban has money. If they want the latest imagery, they can send agents to land there, and have them snap away from the air, and while landing take a long panorama of the aircraft and the defenses on the aprons. At Kandahar Airfield, commercial flights land, including 747s. When you land and taxi on the runways, passengers snap away. The same thing happens in Bagram, Kabul, and Jalalabad. Pilots can photograph many bases at their leisure, and can provide near real-time imagery.
The Afghan military is loaded with turncoats, moles, infiltrators, and drug-addled lunatics. They prove this practically weekly. Last year, a long-time Afghan Air Force Colonel, a helicopter pilot, went berserk and killed nine Americans.
The Afghan Air Force might as well be the National Reconnaissance Office for the Taliban. One crewmember with a camera can get all of the latest imagery from many bases in his area. But aside from that, what if another rogue Afghan pilot decides to go lethal? We have been training their M-17 helicopter pilots to fire rockets."
So, we are basically training those who will use their training to kill our soldiers. Go to the link as Michael describes the different scenarios. Thank goodness, we have just suspended training new recruits to the Afghan Local Police.
"If a rogue used a helicopter bomb in Kabul, it could flatten our Embassy.
Anyone who does not know that the Taliban and the Pakistanis have the will, the intelligence, and the resources to pull off such an attack, or worse, is detached from realities. Both natural and unnatural alliances can align for the worse.
Aside from the fact that six jets were just destroyed while parked on a remote base, and two more badly damaged, this wraps back to our most famous Apache pilot, Prince Harry. When you land at Bastion, it is easy to see where the Harriers, the Apaches, and other aircraft are parked. An Afghan pilot would know the area well. With the intelligence network that the Taliban has developed, there is little doubt that they will, or already have, figured out where Harry lives and works. The Taliban has no shortage of fighters who are ready to swap lives on a one-for-one exchange rate. They are good at infiltrating sleepers. Nobody should doubt that moles are on Bastion."
What Pres. Obama called "the good war" has gone terribly wrong, and it's about time we paid attention to it.
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