Overkill

(Spc. Justin French/Army) An Afghan National Policeman fires a rocket-propelled grenade during a live-fire exercise near Beshud, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, on Feb. 13. The range is for U.S. forces to evaluate the ANP on their marksmanship skills

Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal,
nothing was more profitable than
Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947.
More commonly known as the AK-47,
or Kalashnikov.
It's the world's most popular assault rifle.
A weapon all fighters love.
An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation
of forged steel and plywood.
It doesn't break, jam, or overheat.
It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud
or filled with sand.
It's so easy, even a child can use it;
and they do.

The Soviets put the gun on a coin.
Mozambique put it on their flag.
Since the end of the Cold War,
the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's
greatest export.
After that comes vodka, caviar,
and suicidal novelists.
One thing is for sure,
no one was lining up to buy their cars.
--Lord of War (2005)
________________

[NOTE: Sign of the times -- We searched for the photo accompanying the 8.22.11 Army Times article, but the links for the Army Times title, "Weapon of Choice", were all for video games.]

Army Times recently ran a piece on the iconic RPG ("The Enemy's Weapon of Choice"), every terrorist's favorite weapon.

The picture accompanying the piece is captioned: "A U.S soldier coaches an Afghan National Police officer as he prepares to fire a rocket-propelled grenade launcher during a skills assessment mission on a range in Beshud, Afghanistan."

Now, being from Eastside Cleveland, Ranger knows from rough neighborhoods and both gang and police brutality. But when did RPG's become a police weapon? Is the RPG the Afghan Police equivalent of a Taser? Further, what qualifies a U.S. soldier to train a civilian police officer? A soldier's creed for weapon use is not exactly protect and serve, after all.

Training soldiers is typically a State Department function. Military Police are not civilian police, nor do they possess any skills associated with civilian police functioning, especially not in a country on the backside of nowhere.

RPG's are anti-tank weapons; aside from the character Hurley in Lost, they seem most inappropriate against the average civilian. Does the Taliban have armored vehicles requiring police destruction? Moreover, isn't tank killing a military vs. a police function?

Exactly whom does the Afghan police protect and serve? RPG's would seem to be the tool of tyrants forcing subjugation to and complicity with an unpopular regime.

Let's quit the sham that the Afghan Police and Army are forces of democratization. Both are simply extensions of war lord policies, just another level of violence imposed upon a war-weary nation. However, war-weary America is our concern, and our country should not be complicit in this dirty business.

Idea: Let us give everyone in Afghanistan an AK-47 and an RPG, freeing us to proceed to our next monumental fiasco. Bring it on!