9 Afghan soldiers die in 'friendly fire' incident involving int'l forces

Thursday 23rd October, 05:17 AM JST

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6 Comments

adaydream at 07:11 AM JST - 23rd October

What is with these "friendly fire" incidents, killings of civilians by drones (fired by a US soldier) and missiles fired at "supposed militants" and it winds up being good guys.

Is there no way of distinquishing between friends and foes?

Just seems to be a lot of innocents die. < :-)
bushlover at 07:54 AM JST - 23rd October

I guess you'd never know adaydream as you have no knowledge of how difficult a job it is. No one likes these mistakes but they happen and it's never pretty.
rjd_jr at 08:44 AM JST - 23rd October

And then they wonder why Afghan soldiers and security forces are infiltrated by insurgents. I wonder how "tolerant" and "understanding" people would be if Afghan or other forces killed 9 U.S. troops with friendly fire. Inexcusable, the time has come for the excuses to stop.
adaydream at 08:45 AM JST - 23rd October

You don't know how much knowledge I have bushlover. It just happens too often. Attention to details. < :-)
SezWho2 at 01:51 PM JST - 23rd October

Just a week or so ago Kabulov, the Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, said that America and NATO forces were repeating many of Russia's mistakes:

The solution, Kabulov said, is to shift the fighting as quickly as possible to Afghan troops. This is something the United States and its partners have already embarked on, with a decision this summer to double the size of the Afghan army. But even that, Kabulov said, will accomplish little unless the Americans turn the army into a genuine national force, with a sense among the troops that they are fighting for their country, not as "clients" of the Americans, as Kabulov said he believes they see themselves now.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/20/europe/kabul.php?page=2

Before that he indicated that the coalition forces were moving in the right direction by localizing forces instead of centralizing them. This is the same approach recommended here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810/afghan

However, Kabulov cautioned that this would not provide optimal results unless security was handed over to Afghan forces. This current incident can't be a good recruitment tool.
adaydream at 02:21 AM JST - 24th October

bushlover - Here's another incident. This is happening damn near every single day. < :-)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/23/pakistan-usa