First, I was in the National Guard in the 1980s. During my time I had to man and set up "Check points" in the form of entrance gates to our bivouac area. One characteristics of these check points is they were always supported by a Machine Gun 20-50 feet behind us. If anything would have gone wrong, the Machine Gun would have opened fire as anyone at the gate would have fallen down (We NEVER have live ammo, for all we did was train and did not NEED live ammo for training). You train as you will fight and the above set up had been found to be the most effective way to set up a gate/check point. The purpose of the Guard at the gate was to check out what was coming in and if it was OK, leave it enter. If something was wrong, he was to fall to the ground and the Machine Gun would handle the Situation.
Thus the Check Point is a gate for people to go up to, be checked out and passed through. It is NOT a defensive position, that is further on. I suspect the same techniques are being used in Afghanistan. The Guard at the Check point checks out what is going through the check point, but if something is wrong it is NOT the job of the guard to stop whatever is being checked, but to get out of the way of the Machine Gun who will stop whatever is trying to force they way through the gate.
Once you understand HOW a check point operates, you quickly realized any attack on the check point will be to remove the Machine gun nest guarding the check point not the check point itself (Unless it is a terror attack, then killing the guard is sufficient). To protect the Machine gun you want a clear range of fire and observation. You want no one near. You want a "no man's zone". An area, if someone enters you fire a burst to warn them to get out, and if they do not, you fire on the people in the No man's Zone.
As to the Dump, Afghanistan is a poor country, with people unable to obtain food. Thus garbage dumps are areas where the local poor go to see what they can find to sell for cash. This occurs in Africa and Latin America for the same reasons (And I suspect India and Asia, but I have NOT read of reports in those areas, there are reports of such activities in US dumps, but technically it is illegal and the dump operators do try to keep them out). Thus you have a large group of people working the dump at all times. You can NOT just fire a burst over they heads to chase them away (The dump or the Check point should have been moved). If you fire a burst, they poor may run away, but come back FOR THEY HAVE NO PLACE ELSE TO GO TO FIND SOMETHING TO SELL SO THEY CAN HAVE MONEY TO BUY FOOD.
These two facts, what is normal for a Check Point and what is the norm for dumps in many third world countries, when combined lead to a security problem as to the check point. The Guards at the check point will have to worry about infiltration as to the dump, as long as people go to the dump. Efforts to keep them out will NOT last long, especially if you accept the fact such people have no place else to gather things to sell for food. Thus I lean to the guards doing the killing, as a message to the others NOT to go to the dump. The brutality of the killing reinforces my position that this was a THREAT to others as while as a brutal execution. Theory #1 fits the facts of the case better then any other explanation, but I can NOT exclude Theory #2 or #3, brutal execution would also fit into those theories.
As to the CLAIM it was the Taliban, better off making such a claim them admitting the truth and seeing that fact hit the Western News, The Soldiers do not care about the locals, but they do care about the command structure above them AND how they would react to bad press in the West (i.e. kill the Soldiers and claim, "see we punish people who commits war crimes"
. Notice the problem is NOT the killing, but the bad press from who did the killing, thus everyone has incentives to blame the Taliban
Edit history
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
= new reply since forum marked as read