When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.
Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.
What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.
Things could have been worse except for the help of some US Special Forces guys who were in the area.
Had it not been for the chance presence of some US special forces in the area who were able to call in air support for them, they would have been in an even worse situation.
With friends like this who needs enemies? I hope this information is being disseminated to all the troops. They need to know that if they are going into an area that the Italians had been working in they are in very real danger. Just like an addict can't go without his drug of choice, so too when you cut off the money to the terrorists. How much of that money went to furnish weapons and ammunition and funding to other Taliban across the country to carry out attacks and kill other NATO soldiers from all countries, while the Italians sat back confident that they would face no pressure from home because of dead soldiers? In their world it was perfectly acceptable to pay the bad guys protection money to go and attack the other areas and kill other countries soldiers, like the US, UK and French.
How many lives of soldiers from other countries did this cost, just so that the Italians wouldn't get so much as a scrapped knee?
You know I thought the Italians were supposed to be these bad ass mafia types. The type who collect protection money, not pay it.
It would be a cold day in hell before I had interaction with Italian forces and would darn sure watch my back around them.
It is time to send a message to all NATO countries. You are either in this war to fight and win or pack your crap up and go home. Same message to Obama and his bunch of wussified advisers. Damn it man instead of talking tough to Fox News how about talking tough to the real enemies of this country. The ones that are killing Americans, not merely hurting their feelings.
Or has Obama ordered up copies of the Rossetta Stone to brush up on his Italian?
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