A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.
He left his military base in the early hours of the morning and opened fire in at least two homes; women and children were among the dead.
Nato said it was investigating the “deeply regrettable incident.”
Apparently, the soldier in question had a breakdown and decided he needed to blow away as many Afghans as possible. Then he turned himself in.
Whether this was a matter of somebody having a psychotic episode or emblematic of American disgust with the Afghan people – which is something the media has been completely negligent in reporting but is anything but hard to uncover; all you have to do is talk to somebody who fought there and you’ll be struck by the visceral dislike for Afghans among our servicemen and women – is difficult to say.
Either way, if burning a few defaced Korans set the place on fire this will undoubtedly make things worse. Our situation in Afghanistan is already untenable, and it’s been made worse by unsustainable rules of engagement and a public announcement of withdrawal.
Troop morale is said to be abysmal.
Circumstances like that make for disasters like this one. There will be more.
Afghanistan is lost. Truly lost. You could say Obama lost the war, but the truth is we won that war when we deposed the Taliban and we were never going to be successful installing a modern state there. That was a fool’s errand.
And now it’s time to get out before we’re driven out. At least if we leave now we can declare victory; within months every U.S. base will be the Alamo, or at least Khe Sanh.
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