Sorry about the split reporting, but everybody’s at the RS Gathering and news is going on. Specifically: we’re doing airdrops to support Yazidis refugees. And apparently airstrikes to dissuade ISIS/ISIL. And hopefully we’re going to expand that last bit to give the Kurds some assistance. And… look, we’re going to end up going back to Iraq. I think Barack Obama has finally realized that losing the war there will be a disaster for the country (my major concern), the Democratic party (his party’s major concern), and his future speaker’s fees (guess).
Tag: airstrikes
Pakistanis admit to firing first on NATO troops.
Via Drudge comes the beginnings of clarity on this issue: it’s now being tacitly admitted by the Pakistan government that Saturday’s conflict was initiated by their own troops. Essentially, Afghan/American troops were raiding Taliban in Afghanistan when Pakistan troops fired on them (the Pakistan government maintains that their troops were attacking on what they thought were insurgents). NATO airstrikes were the result, which shot up two military posts and killed over twenty Pakistani troops.
The Pakistanis’ claim here is that they alerted NATO forces that it was their military posts that were being shot up (although they apparently informed NATO earlier that they had no troops in the area); one Afghan response to that was that the insurgents that NATO/Afghan troops were hunting had retreated to said posts and continued to shoot from there. Which, if true, more or less illustrates the reason why you do not offer tactical shelter to people who are shooting at United States troops. The end result will be the local real estate getting reconfigured into a state best described as ‘lunar landscape.’ Continue reading Pakistanis admit to firing first on NATO troops.