46 Afghan's gone AWOL in US

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Canceled2

Banned
EXCLUSIVE: Number of Afghans Gone AWOL in U.S. Reaches 46
By Jana Winter

Published July 07, 2010

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- A be-on-the-lookout alert issued last month for 17 Afghan military men who walked away from an Air Force base in Texas has turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. No fewer than 46 members of the Afghan military have gone absent without leave from the Defense Language Institute’s English Language Center at Lackland Air Force Base in recent years, FoxNews.com has learned.

The rest here.
 
Threedee said:
I didn't realize how many Afghan soldiers wanted to become Americans...
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Do they want to become Americans, or do they want to become guided missiles? Seriously, if this doesn't make you uncomfortable I can't imagine what would.
 
Damocles said:
Do they want to become Americans, or do they want to become guided missiles? Seriously, if this doesn't make you uncomfortable I can't imagine what would.
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:rolleyes:

"Another report stated that since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted, also according to the Pentagon. More than half of these served in the US Army [5]. Almost all of these soldiers deserted within the USA..."

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, ever think of that?
 
christiefan915 said:
:rolleyes:

"Another report stated that since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted, also according to the Pentagon. More than half of these served in the US Army [5]. Almost all of these soldiers deserted within the USA..."

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, ever think of that?
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Sometimes it is, but your story isn't about people who are part of other nations' military. The 40,000 troops that deserted in this story were US military personnel and deserted at home.

Sometimes 46 members of the Afghanistan military deserting in the US might be part of something else, and we should take it very seriously.
 
Damocles said:
Sometimes it is, but your story isn't about people who are part of other nations' military. The 40,000 troops that deserted in this story were US military personnel and deserted at home.

Sometimes 46 members of the Afghanistan military deserting in the US might be part of something else, and we should take it very seriously.
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Yeah, and maybe they got a taste of the sweet life here and decided to take their chances rather than get shipped back to the primitive places they came from.

I don't get the RW penchant to see nefarious motives just because the deserters were Afghan. Maybe that's because liberals aren't ruled by fear.
 
Liberals are ruled by stupidity. But regarding Damo's comment about whether or not much worries me, I admit to not being a model representative of the Air Force when it comes to security. I don't have much sense for it, and mostly all I ever do is laugh at our latest measures and poke fun at the latest briefings I've attended...
 
christiefan915 said:
Yeah, and maybe they got a taste of the sweet life here and decided to take their chances rather than get shipped back to the primitive places they came from.

I don't get the RW penchant to see nefarious motives just because the deserters were Afghan. Maybe that's because liberals aren't ruled by fear.
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I would bet the majority of them are that, but that it is necessary to find these people because it only takes one that has different purpose. We're not very good at knowing who it would be, as proven by the CIA recruited Afghan who walked in and killed 4 CIA Agents one day...

I don't particularly care if they are forced to go home, in fact if they really just want to be Americans we should have a way to make that happen. Yet we need to be very reticent to ignore them.
 
Damocles said:
I would bet the majority of them are that, but that it is necessary to find these people because it only takes one that has different purpose. We're not very good at knowing who it would be, as proven by the CIA recruited Afghan who walked in and killed 4 CIA Agents one day...

I don't particularly care if they are forced to go home, in fact if they really just want to be Americans we should have a way to make that happen. Yet we need to be very reticent to ignore them.
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This! :good4u:
 
Damocles said:
I would bet the majority of them are that, but that it is necessary to find these people because it only takes one that has different purpose. We're not very good at knowing who it would be, as proven by the CIA recruited Afghan who walked in and killed 4 CIA Agents one day...

I don't particularly care if they are forced to go home, in fact if they really just want to be Americans we should have a way to make that happen. Yet we need to be very reticent to ignore them.
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AF officials weren't worried but *somehow* this got to the media and went viral. You'll have to excuse my cynicism that this was just a ploy to somehow make Obama look soft on terror.

Air Force spokesman Gary Emery said Friday the Afghanis disappeared from Lackland Air Force Base one-by-one. The men were vetted by the military and aren't believed to be connected to one another or to any terrorist group, Emery said.

"I don't think that anybody's really concerned that this is any sort of a plot or that they're looking to do anybody any harm," he said.

The disappearances were reported to immigration and federal law enforcement when they occurred, but a nationwide alert was issued Wednesday. It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the alert.

According to NBC News, nearly half of the AWOL Afghans have already been picked up or turned themselves in to authorities since they went missing.

"We have no reason to believe they had any malicious intent at all," when they disappeared from the base, an Air Force official told NBC.

These aren't the first students to go AWOL from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland. An Iraqi man went AWOL last year and later showed up in Dallas, requesting asylum in the U.S. Others from Tunisia and Guinea Bissau have also gone AWOL from the institute, according to NBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37788900/
 
christiefan915 said:
AF officials weren't worried but *somehow* this got to the media and went viral. You'll have to excuse my cynicism that this was just a ploy to somehow make Obama look soft on terror.

Air Force spokesman Gary Emery said Friday the Afghanis disappeared from Lackland Air Force Base one-by-one. The men were vetted by the military and aren't believed to be connected to one another or to any terrorist group, Emery said.

"I don't think that anybody's really concerned that this is any sort of a plot or that they're looking to do anybody any harm," he said.

The disappearances were reported to immigration and federal law enforcement when they occurred, but a nationwide alert was issued Wednesday. It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the alert.

According to NBC News, nearly half of the AWOL Afghans have already been picked up or turned themselves in to authorities since they went missing.

"We have no reason to believe they had any malicious intent at all," when they disappeared from the base, an Air Force official told NBC.

These aren't the first students to go AWOL from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland. An Iraqi man went AWOL last year and later showed up in Dallas, requesting asylum in the U.S. Others from Tunisia and Guinea Bissau have also gone AWOL from the institute, according to NBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37788900/
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I think it is brutally stupid to ignore this, even if you think they could never possibly be a threat because an Iraqi guy went AWOL last year and turned up in Dallas.
 
Damocles said:
I think it is brutally stupid to ignore this, even if you think they could never possibly be a threat because an Iraqi guy went AWOL last year and turned up in Dallas.
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Nobody ignored it. The military checked in with law enforcement. Immigration was notified. Almost half of the AWOLs were already picked up or turned themselves in. The only difference here is that this got out to the media and and grandstanding Cornyn went public calling it a "potential national security threat".

Cornyn considers this incident a threat because one middle Easterner went on a rampage last year, so now any middle Easterners going AWOL are automatically suspect. Sweeping generalization.
 
christiefan915 said:
Nobody ignored it. The military checked in with law enforcement. Immigration was notified. Almost half of the AWOLs were already picked up or turned themselves in. The only difference here is that this got out to the media and and grandstanding Cornyn went public calling it a "potential national security threat".

Cornyn considers this incident a threat because one middle Easterner went on a rampage last year, so now any middle Easterners going AWOL are automatically suspect. Sweeping generalization.
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I think that it was "kept quiet" until somebody let out this particular little "secret"...

It is not okay to let this kind of thing happen, and your blase attitude doesn't mean it isn't something we should take seriously.

I mean, come on, 'There was some Iraqi that did it last year!" is your defense of this total lack of security? I understand why they wanted it kept quiet, people may realize that they aren't doing their jobs.
 
Damocles said:
I think that it was "kept quiet" until somebody let out this particular little "secret"...

It is not okay to let this kind of thing happen, and your blase attitude doesn't mean it isn't something we should take seriously.

I mean, come on, 'There was some Iraqi that did it last year!" is your defense of this total lack of security? I understand why they wanted it kept quiet, people may realize that they aren't doing their jobs.
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If people were doing their jobs, 40,000 troops from all branches wouldn't have gone AWOL since 2000.

Sorry, but I'm not going to profile the minute number of Afghan AWOLs as "potential national threats" just because they're middle eastern. I'll leave that to the wingnuts like Cornyn and
 
christiefan915 said:
If people were doing their jobs, 40,000 troops from all branches wouldn't have gone AWOL since 2000.

Sorry, but I'm not going to profile the minute number of Afghan AWOLs as "potential national threats" just because they're middle eastern. I'll leave that to the wingnuts like Cornyn and
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Again, there is a difference between US citizens going AWOL at home, and Afghan citizens going AWOL here. It is brutally dishonest to pretend that they are the same thing.
 
Damocles said:
Again, there is a difference between US citizens going AWOL at home, and Afghan citizens going AWOL here. It is brutally dishonest to pretend that they are the same thing.
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Again, unless you can prove some nefarious motive other that going AWOL while Afghan, you may have a point.

Addendum: while are these people in the U.S. being trained at U.S. military bases, if just being Afghan puts them under suspicion? Seems pretty clear to me, train them in their own country if there's a "potential national security threat" by having them here.
 
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