Daily Lessons from Life 30 November 2010 - Trainee policeman kills six US troops in Afghanistan

By the way, this is the last day of November 2010 - 11/12th of the year is GONE!!

"Trainee policeman kills six US troops in Afghanistan - Tue, Nov 30, 2010 AFP

ASADABAD, Afghanistan, Nov 30, 2010 (AFP) - Six American soldiers training Afghan police in a Taliban flashpoint were shot dead by one of their students in the deadliest such incident in at least two years, officials said Tuesday.

The shooting, which follows a string of similar attacks on NATO troops, underscores the challenges faced by the US-led mission as it aims to build the national army and police to take responsibility for security by 2014."

It is apparent that this is NOT an isolated 'killed by your trainees or friendly forces' incident in Afghanistan! There were quite a few similar attacks by trainees or people who dressed like the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Lessons for me are:

1. it is a total nightmare to be fighting a guerrila war in a country where everyone looks alike to you and there is almost no way to tell a foe from a friend based on appearance!! Think Vietcong in the Vietnam war where the American soliders were driven to despairs and committed atrocities against civilians in the Mei Lai incident!! The war crime was decried by all. Yet, I wonder if some sympathy was deserved for the soliders there?;

2. I always maintain that interfering in a foreign nation when you were not really invited is not good diplomacy. Getting oneself killed by someone you thought you are helping sincerely is not good death for sure. Yet, it is happening. Not once but many times over. The soilders killed will probably never know, though they could guessed, what hit them!! A terrible way to die;

3. will the ISAF, with the Americans as the biggest backer, be successful in training 130k of these Afghanistan policemen and army to provide security for the Afghanistans after the UN and US forces leave the nation? Well. Only if 99% of these folks really believed that the 'US system' can work in their country. Without the 'buy-in' from the Afghanistans, this effort will be futile. It will be dropping good money into a bottomless pit. Even if you dropped good coins into it, you will not hear any clinking sound!!

May the dead soilders rest in peace and the murderer rest in peace too. The funny thing here, or sad, is that the murderer probably believed what he did is proper. To kill someone who were training him just a few days ago!!