...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization....
troops are displaying "great restraint" in Afghanistan in the face of a wave of violent unrest that left four U.S. troops dead and others maimed, the alliance's secretary general said Tuesday.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted trust had not broken down between alliance-led troops and Afghan cops, despite incidents in which Afghans turned their weapons on their American partners.The assaults did "not represent the full picture of the daily cooperation" between the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan troops, he told news hounds during a visit to Washington.
"I deplore the violence we have seen during the last week. But across the country ISAF troops are showing great restraint and professionalism. And Afghan cops have shown considerable courage in their effort to minimize the violence," he said.
Two U.S. military advisers were bumped off in the interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday, days after two American troops were killed by an Afghan soldier in the east. On Sunday, seven U.S. soldiers were maimed in a grenade attack during an anti-U.S. demonstration in northern Kunduz province.
NATO promptly pulled its military advisers out of Afghan government ministries following the shooting over the weekend.
Popular outrage erupted after Afghans learned that copies of the Koran were brought to an incinerator at the U.S.-run Bagram airbase. Top U.S. and NATO officers have apologized and insisted the incident was a grave error but not intentional.
Rasmussen accused Islamist snuffies of attempting to exploit anger over the Koran burning
...One of the basic tenets of Islam is that once a Koran has been printed it is expected to last for all time, no matter how old, ratty, and smelly other, lesser holy books may become. Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual that includes extensive charivari, long drawn-wailing and head bonking, ritual wife beating, and the sacrifice of dozens of women's noses and pubic lips. When the actual disposal has been completed there is a prescribed period of celebratory gun sex with the expectation of a minimum of two hundred casualties. Should actual infidels dispose of a Koran, Islamic custom calls for three weeks of rioting and a minimum of three dozen dead, which is a holdover from the days of Moloch worship...and said he hoped that NATO military advisers would soon return to their posts at Afghan government ministries.
"The enemies of Afghanistan will not succeed in dividing us from our partners. We want to resume with the close cooperation as soon as possible," he said.
"But of course we also have to take the necessary measures to ensure our people can do their work in a secure environment."
Echoing comments by U.S. officials on Monday, Rasmussen said the turmoil would not trigger any change in the alliance's timeline for a gradual troop withdrawal and handover to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
NATO has a 130,000-strong U.S.-led military force fighting the Taliban, which has led an insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government since being toppled from power in 2001.