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Top Billing! Kitchen Dispatch –A Travesty Forged by Politics: Support SFC Walter Taylor
This story makes my stomach turn.
We now have retroactive ROE for enlisted operators so that lawyers can parse chaotic firefights second by second against ex post facto political requirements of our corrupt and useless lotus-eating client, Hamid Karzai. Read Kanani Fong’s post and ask yourself how a vehicle that was deemed a threat in eyes of prosecutors can only have non-threatening occupants who approach American GIs in the midst of combat? WTF?
The initial investigation which blamed “failures of leadership” in the tragic death of Dr. Aqilah Hikmat has been swept under the rug by Army prosecutors.
The senior generals of the US Army are failing in their moral obligation to stand behind our soldiers when they are right and to demonstrate that when they are wrong, that the standards that apply to the least of privates apply equally to the most august of commanding officers:
A few weeks ago, over on Facebook, I shared the tragic story of the accidental death of a female Afghan gynecologist. She had stepped into a battle, where a convoy had not only been bombed, but were engaged in a firefight. I remember scratching my head, thinking about the scores of women who needed her skills, and now they wouldn’t have them. Everyone on Facebook agreed. We were all saddened and troubled.
But I also recall thinking that in her snap decision, she underestimated the situation, the danger, and her own mortality. Had she not rushed into the middle of things, she would be alive today. Sometimes you cannot save the world, only yourself and the ones you love.
War in itself is messed up. War and politics even more so. The president of that creaky nation called for an investigation.
Now, Army prosecutors are bringing charges of negligent homicide against SFC Taylor.
His Facebook support page is here: In Support of SFC Walter Taylor
Since he’s hired a civilian military defense attorney, a fund has been set up because it’s already wiped out his life savings. Please go here: On Indiegogo: Defense Fund for SFC Walter Taylor
Then keep reading. From the L.A. Times:
“Four Seconds in Afghanistan: Was it combat or a crime?
Four seconds….Good fucking Lord.
Imagine your head has just been rocked by the concussive force of high explosive, bullets are snapping around you and the air is thick with the cries of wounded friends. You don’t know where are the enemy is. No officer is giving you orders. You can’t hear properly. Your heart is pounding in your chest. All of you may die in the next few minutes. A black car pulls up and everyone sprays it with bullets. Someone gets out and walks at you….what do you do?
You had far more time reading that passage than SFC Taylor had to make the decision for which he is on trial for his freedom.
Peter J. Munson –Rajiv Chandrasekaran on Afghanistan, COIN, and the Future of the MAGTF
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