Bad Timing

By Steve Hynd

The story of American soldiers from the 5th Stryker brigade who are alleged to have formed a murder team is hitting the world's press. The soldiers are charged with killing three Afghan civilians "essentially for sport" while under the influence of booze and drugs, taking fingers for trophies.

But so far I've not seen any press reports that notices that the U.S. military is currently engaged in another "major offensive" to pacify the area where those soldiers were operating when their alleged crimes were comitted.

Bad timing, or what? You have to wonder why General Petraeus decided to greenlight such an operation while these previous atrocities in the region were gaining such worldwide publicity.

U.S. forces are trying to convince locals that they are there to establish some form of "rule of law" that will benefit those locals - and meanwhile everyone's hearing the story of how the last time U.S. troops went mole-whacking in the area, these soldiers were doing the exact opposite.

Sure, military operations take months to plan - but someone still has to say "go" or "no go". And while some might argue that the military shouldn't take media stories into consideration when mounting operations, when waging a "population-centric counterinsurgency" war they most assuredly should.

Someone should at least ask the Teflon general for an explanation of his thought process.