Schmedlap.com

A weblog of periodic insights from a former know-it-all Infantry Officer

... the ordnance, on the other hand...

Posted by Schmedlap at: 04:06 AM on 08 SEP 09 | Comments (63) | Reply to this post

I was a bit surprised to see that the recent bombing of two fuel trucks in Afghanistan has drawn very little Afghan anger. My first instinct when the story broke was to wonder why the pilot could not simply track the two vehicles and bomb them after they drove away from the civilians in the vicinity. Perhaps he was low on fuel? UAVs are pretty ubiquitous. Or perhaps the trucks were simply driven from one area full of civilians to another area full of civilians and were being rigged up as VBIEDs from there? If the tankers were simply stolen to people could steal the fuel - was that worth bombing? I don’t know. Pure speculation and wild guesses on my part. It just seemed that this was avoidable and I was anticipating this turning into a public relations disaster. I am glad to see that I was apparently wrong.

The Washington Post reports that a favorable convergence of circumstances and reactions by ISAF have resulted in only “muted” anger:

”This time, according to human rights activists and foreign diplomats, rising Afghan anger toward the Taliban in the once-tranquil north, a swift public apology by U.S. military officials and national preoccupation with a troubled presidential election have combined to deflect popular outrage over the bombing.”

Good job, Stan.

Posted by Schmedlap at: 04:06 AM on 08 SEP 09 | Permalink | Comments (63) | Reply to this post

Comments...

1. Hrothgar says:

...This event says to me that maybe we should emphasize the use of UAV's. Certainly this will not eliminate the risk of errors in human judgment; but perhaps with more very skilled special forces infiltrating in select areas we'll have more timely intelligence. This 78 year old former USAF Radar Intercept Controller can link to UAV's easier than I can to thousands and thousands of ground troops who'll need mountains of supplies shipped monthly halfway around the world.....hence my agreeing with the George Will piece in enabling us get more men out of there altogether. Demographically, our enemies in Central and West Asia must always outnumber us because they breed like fish. It's impossible for us to keep these numerous religious /ethnic factions from killing each other as they've been doing since long before Islamism in the 7th Cent started its metastasis. So in order for us to keep our Islamist enemies over there, let's make our aim 'containment' as in our cold War experience. May I hear the arguments against my thoughts?

Posted at: 4:47 PM on 09/09/2009 -
2 response to this comment by: CorneilleJC Cialis

2. Schmedlap says:

UAV surveillance/tracking of the targets was the first thing that popped into my mind, too. I can recall a few cases where we tracked individuals until they were at a safe distance from civilians and then a hellfire came from out of the sky and blew them up. But, as I noted above, it is hard to make any judgments or recommendations without knowing more information about the incidents. In regard to UAV/SF coordination, I think SF should be used for the narrow missions that they were designed for. Most of the tasks that people recommend SF do are tasks that any Infantry Squad can do. SF should be waist deep in FID for the foreseeable future, imo. They do good intel sourcing, but if we rely too heavily on them then we're removing the incentives for other agencies to revive their HUMINT collection capabilities.

Posted at: 9:39 PM on 09/09/2009 -
4 response to this comment by: FINBARMCKOOL mismindles sonysystem CarlyJo

3. Hrothgar says:

..Schmedlap...to prevent my double or triple posts of the same text, pls advz if you have a built-in time lag between clicking ...Submit... and then seeing it on your web-page? H.

Posted at: 08:21 AM on 09/10/2009 -
4 response to this comment by: cullerz yanetteJH ryohayashi darkvesperia

4. FINBARMCKOOL says: