The military commissioned a Red Team study to get at the root of the problem of insider attacks in Afghanistan.
What they discovered was rather shocking to say the least.
The report was called: “A Crisis of Trust and cultural Incompatibility: A Red Team study of mutual perceptions of Afghan National Security Force personnel and U.S. soldiers in understanding and mitigating the phenomena of ANSF-committed fratricide- murders” (source: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/images/pdf/trust-incompatibility.pdf ).
The report details specific complaints by Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) with respect to the reckless, cavalier and often time abusive and reprehensible behavior of U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
Among the litany of complaints was one in particular stood out.
It alleges that U.S. soldiers routinely encourage the attention of Afghan children by enticing them with candy.
ANSF members say this makes children targets.
“If they hand out candy to children, the children are at risk of getting hurt by being so close to the Americans, if they were to be an attack. They put them in danger” said one ANSF member.
Such acts represent a major complaint by ANSF members against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
These complaints involving the candy are often ignored by U.S. Military commanders and personnel who simply don’t listen or think about the possible consequences of their personnel action in a combat zone…
U.S. military personnel, often assume their actions are well meaning or harmless when they are anything but that.
In some case the kids cross in front of weapons positions to get at the candy U.S. soldiers entice them with – which means they could get caught in cross fire if attacked (see video: Marine offering kids some pop rocks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6SGQlxhPg ).
See video: Kabul – Afghan kids getting candy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZdzxm5JFu0&feature=player_embedded#!
On Youtube there are literally hundreds of video showing U.S. soldiers and ISAF personnel giving candy to kids. In some cases the soldiers are encouraged by their commanding officers.
In one incident, U.S. soldiers inspecting a project outside of Jalalabad stopped to toss candy to the children who were swarming around their Humvee. Minutes later a loud explosion tore through the crowd, killing five Afghans, including two little children and wounding nine U.S. soldiers. The crowd in that case quickly turned on the Americans blaming them for the deaths of the children (see article: Afghanistan: Limits of ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1954564,00.html ).
We contacted the Pentagon who refused to comment on this report, after they found out we were reporting it as a story involving complaints against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
