Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Jailhouse Confidential: Hamsters on a Wheel in a Cage Called Afghanistan

Ruins of old Kandahar Citadel that was destroy...Image via WikipediaMujahideen dug that darn tunnel for 5 months, no one noticed

The escapees numbering a total of 540 individuals left prison, no one noticed.

The daring escape lasted for 4.5 hours, no one noticed

And oops, the guards did not notice their prisoners were gone until four hours after the prison break concluded, which would be at 7:30 am if you listen to the Taliban crowing about the escape.  

I take it we trained these bozos, and we probably built that jailhouse, too. How many Taliban fighters who killed our soldiers were in that prison? How many from these escapees will now go back fighting and killing some more of our soldiers?      

Via Al Jazeera:

Some 540 members of the Taliban including military commanders have escaped from Kandahar prison via a 320 metre-long tunnel, Afghan government officials have confirmed to Al Jazeera.

A Taliban official on Monday also confirmed the overnight escape, boasting that the prison break had been "very well-planned" and that it was five months in the making, Al Jazeera's Qais Azimy, reporting from Kabul, said.

According to a Taliban statement the tunnel was not dug by the inmates but by fighters outside the prison.

"Mujahideen started digging a 320 metre-long to the prison from the south side, which was completed after a five-month period, bypassing check posts and the Kandahar-Herat main highway leading directly to the political prison," the statement read.

"The tunnel reached its target last night, from where the prisoner Mujahideen were led away through the escape route by three previously informed inmates in a period of four-and-a-half hours, starting from 11pm last night and ending at 3:30am this morning. Mujahideen later on sent vehicles to the inmates who were led away to secure destinations."

"They all have made it safe to our centres and there was no fighting," Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said.

Ahmadi said that 106 were Taliban commanders while the rest were foot soldiers. Kandahar police said they had re-captured eight commanders so far.

The Taliban claim that the prison guards did not notice the escape until four hours after the operation was completed.

The prison in southern Afghanistan typically holds drug dealers as well as Taliban fighters captured by NATO forces, our correspondent said.

Read the whole thing here; try not to tear out your hair. 

Reports say 65 prisoners have been re-arrested. Phooey! Give them 5 more months and they'll be off again in another escapade from jail. And we'll be tearing out our hair again! Enough already!   

I feel like we're hamsters on a wheel in a cage called Afghanistan.  We can no longer afford this experiment. It's time to go home. Let's declare victory and go home, dammit! AQ is next door, didn't you know that?  And sometimes walking away is a sign of strength not weakness, despite taunts from UBL's minions. We need to wrap this up.  Not after the US treasury is bankrupt with these forever wars but soon, before China becomes our landlord. 

Oh, gosh! I'm now officially suffering from Afghanistan-Sucks Syndrome or ASS for short... but our pre-kinder kids can really use some of that down the drain money in their classrooms now if we want them to be competitive in the world of the future tomorrow. No kidding about it.        









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