rssPakistanis Fire On U.S. Troops In *Afghanistan*
Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 1:19 pm
- 7 Comments
The situation with the Pakistanis is deteriorating by the minute. On Sunday they fired “warning shots” at U.S. helicopters in Pakistani airspace. Yesterday they may have shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle in Pakistani airspace. And now the Pentagon has just announced that the Pakistani Army fired on U.S. troops in Afghan airspace.
Pakistani soldiers manning a border checkpoint fired on U.S. helicopters flying in Afghan airspace today, Defense Department officials said.
The aircraft were on a mission as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. The OH-58 Kiowas never intruded on Pakistani airspace, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
The Pakistani fire did not hit the choppers and the American aircraft did not return fire, Whitman said. “U.S. forces always maintain the right of self-defense,” he said. “In this particular case, my understanding is they just broke off and didn’t return fire.”
Whitman’s best attempt at putting on a happy face is to say “…we were immediately able to contact Pakistani authorities and determine the origin of the fire.” Well, great. You know what’s a lot better than that? Not having U.S. troops get shot at by an ostensible ally.
Chances are this is a situation where border guards overinterpreted an order given them by their chain of command. It’s not an international incident. But it most certainly is a massive alarm bell that the U.S.-Pakistani relationship has gone off the rails. The rate this is going, some American soldier is going to get killed if something isn’t done. Then we really will have an international incident on our hands.
Follow Spencer Ackerman on Twitter
7 Comments
Comment posted September 25, 2008 @ 11:17 am
an internation incident, like flying armed helicopters into another nations airspace? if russia started flying nuclear bombers over the US, we'd sure shoot them down. I'm not sure if you grasp this notion of “national independence”, the US doesn't own the world.
Comment posted September 25, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
Pakistan (pock-key-stun) is a terrorist nation. They provide safe haven for terrorists and supply and support them. We will soon be after the terrorists big time and they will suffer the consequences.
Comment posted September 25, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
It could be that the Pakistani military wasn't actually trying to hit copters, but was simply engaging in the traditional covering fire for terrorists returning home after trying to destabilize Afghanistan.
Comment posted September 25, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
“Then we really will have an international incident on our hands.” —this is what BushCo wants. It will give us a pretext to attack Pakistan, distract from the Homeland Financial Collapse allowing a stampede of congress, and will shore up Sen. McCain as the “defense” candidate (despite Palin).
Further, the turmoil will allow martial law in the U.S. and BushCo can suspend the election, the constitution, and the very few remaining laws that they haven't already. Oh, and bankrupting the middle class (even more) and making BushCo cronies richer.
Comment posted September 25, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
Before you start to speculate, read actual accounts of what happened in Google news ” US choppers tried to enter Pakistani Airspace” despite Admiral Mike Mullen assuring Pakistanis that US would respect that countries sovereignty. The Pakistani forces fired flares to warn their allies to respect international borders and their sovereignty so before you get all testy and jumpy ask yourself what we are trying achieve by being in that region our premise for going to war in Iraq (i.e finding WMDs -more like occupying oilfields for Dick Chaney Hallibuton et al) -was a sham and in Afghanistan fighting Al-Qaeeda seems futile our economy is collapsing because of the strain of these wars and years of mal-adminstration, isn't it time we stopped meddling in the afairs of others and tried to improve the situation at home?
Comment posted September 26, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Before you start to speculate, read actual accounts of what happened in Google news ” US choppers tried to enter Pakistani Airspace” despite Admiral Mike Mullen assuring Pakistanis that US would respect that countries sovereignty. The Pakistani forces fired flares to warn their allies to respect international borders and their sovereignty so before you get all testy and jumpy ask yourself what we are trying achieve by being in that region our premise for going to war in Iraq (i.e finding WMDs -more like occupying oilfields for Dick Chaney Hallibuton et al) -was a sham and in Afghanistan fighting Al-Qaeeda seems futile our economy is collapsing because of the strain of these wars and years of mal-adminstration, isn't it time we stopped meddling in the afairs of others and tried to improve the situation at home?
Comment posted September 6, 2011 @ 11:38 am
I am very happy to read this. This is the kind of manual that needs to be given and not the random misinformation that’s at the other blogs. Appreciate your sharing this best doc.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
