Troubling Times
22nd December 2015
Taki fisks the New York Times.
The latest Times ploy to undermine the American military is a very long, close-to-10,000-word diatribe by three of its “reporters” accusing an American SEAL outfit in Afghanistan of having committed a crime while training Afghan police officers back in 2012. The paper charges the SEALs with having beaten up an Afghan civilian—read a Taliban suspect—who later died after his rough treatment. It was never made clear despite the overheated verbiage who among the Americans and Afghans administered the beating. I would guess it was Afghan policemen, but the SEALs get the rap. The Times is calling it a cover-up. But Capt. Robert Smith, who thoroughly investigated the incident—he is now a military assistant to the secretary of the Navy—opted to drop all the charges.
The Navy, unlike the grubby Times, does not convict without definite proof, and while the victim was involved in perhaps planting a bomb, and having been captured and interrogated by both Afghans and Americans, the Navy dropped the charges. But not The New York Times. After all, the men involved were Americans, white and brave. Lying is a way of life among Afghans, so the SEALs had to have a very long and boring article, followed by an editorial, condemning them. Sulzberger and his motley crew should be forced to go and live in that pleasant land for some time, but that’s not how the world works. Incidentally, some Afghan pilots undergoing training in America have defected—yes, that’s the operative word—and have disappeared somewhere in our pleasant land without a trace. All I can say is, who can blame them? I’d rather be a fugitive in Uncle Sam’s land than a pilot in Afghanistan any day.