Afghan soldier 'killed French troops over US video'
KABUL — An Afghan soldier who shot dead four French troops has said he did it because of a recent video showing US Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban insurgents, security sources told AFP.
The attack on the soldiers, who were unarmed, came on Friday at a base in eastern Afghanistan and left 15 other French troops wounded, eight of them seriously.
"During the initial interrogations by French soldiers, he told them he did it because of the video in which American soldiers were urinating on bodies," an Afghan army officer said.
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The Afghan soldier had also referred to a video showing British soldiers allegedly abusing Afghan children, the source with access to Ministry of Defence information said.Less than a week after news of the US Marines video broke, British military police arrested two servicemen over allegations that they abused an Afghan boy and a girl, both aged about 10, and filmed the incidents.
The French will not be amused about this. Getting tarred with the same brush than those uncultured Americans and the perverts from the perfidious Albion is below their self perceived dignity. Add some freedom fries to that. (In their real behaviour in wars, the French are of course not much different the the Americans or the British.)
Sarkozy is facing a contested presidential election that may well kick him out. The French public is widely against the colonial adventure in Afghanistan. The French troops in Kapisa have had little success in their attempts to root out the Taliban there. Even before the motive of the Afghan soldier was known Sarkozy had threatened to pull the French troops out. Give today's news he will be under even more pressure to do so. I expect the French troops to leave Afghanistan by the end of the year.
With some 4,000 soldiers the French contingent is the fourth biggest after the U.S., British and German one. It is responsible for the province of Kapisa which is described as the Taliban's gateway to Kabul. The French leaving there will leave a quite big hole in the eastern front. Them leaving will be a serious loss for the U.S. effort there.
The U.S. military once had the idea of the strategic corporal. Low level leaders that win counterinsurgency wars by doing the right things and not doing the wrong stuff. Essentially German Auftragstaktik at its best. But in reality there is little incentive in the U.S. military to do the right thing and there is lack of enforcement of discipline, beginning at the very top, against doing wrong.
When the policy at the very top is to torture the living terrorists, without ever going after the perpetrators, it is difficult to explain to the soldiers on the ground not to piss on the dead ones.
Various wars have shown that losing the moral ground at the top filters through the chain of command and loses the war on the ground. One wonders why that lesson has to be relearned so often.