Master Corporal Byron Greff, RIPAstonishing and deeply saddening news from Aghanistan. Six NATO troops were killed in Kabul yesterday. One of them was a Canadian.
Master Cpl. Byron Greff was riding in an armoured shuttle bus on a routine convoy through the jam-packed streets of Kabul when a car packed with explosives and driven by a Taliban suicide bomber slammed into it and blew up in a fireball. 17 people aboard the bus died: MCpl. Greff and five American soldiers, eight "civilian security contractors" [read "mercenaries", Ed.] and four Afghans.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Prime Minister Harpoon assured Canadians that it wasn't necessary to pull out all of Canada's armed forces this summer, as he had previously promised. It couldn't hurt to leave behind a few hundred to act as "trainers" and continue the mission for Peace, Democracy, the Emancipation of Afghan Women and other Good Things.
At the time, Walt said that it was ridiculous to think that "trainers" could do their job from the safety of some kind of fortress within the capital city. Sooner or later they would have to go out, in uniform. And, Walt said, the Taliban don't make any distinction between trainers and combatants.
Turns out Walt was right.
Master Cpl. Byron Greff was riding in an armoured shuttle bus on a routine convoy through the jam-packed streets of Kabul when a car packed with explosives and driven by a Taliban suicide bomber slammed into it and blew up in a fireball. 17 people aboard the bus died: MCpl. Greff and five American soldiers, eight "civilian security contractors" [read "mercenaries", Ed.] and four Afghans.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Prime Minister Harpoon assured Canadians that it wasn't necessary to pull out all of Canada's armed forces this summer, as he had previously promised. It couldn't hurt to leave behind a few hundred to act as "trainers" and continue the mission for Peace, Democracy, the Emancipation of Afghan Women and other Good Things.
At the time, Walt said that it was ridiculous to think that "trainers" could do their job from the safety of some kind of fortress within the capital city. Sooner or later they would have to go out, in uniform. And, Walt said, the Taliban don't make any distinction between trainers and combatants.
Turns out Walt was right.
No comments:
Post a Comment