“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” reads a report from Western coalition forces in Afghanistan. Attempts to paint such incidents as random and anomalous “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest.” The report refers to murders not by Taliban fighters, but by Afghan soldiers fighting alongside or being trained by NATO forces, supposed partners whom they more than occasionally execute. As when an Afghan colonel shot eight American officers in their heads last spring, the Arab spring.
Yesterday, a gunman in an Afghan army uniform shot and killed four French soldiers during a training session. The French president has threatened withdrawal, since his soldiers don’t know who the enemy is. Western military forces have been in Afghanistan now for a decade.
