Military officials who have done tours in Afghanistan are outraged that brass would even suggest US troops are partly to blame for their own murders.
“I would like to see a public affairs officer explain to the press where showing the bottom of your shoe to a Muslim or shaking with your left hand was legitimate grounds for murder,” growled one US Army official.
They say their Muslim partners would still resent them even if they followed their Islamic protocols to the letter.
“The cultural affronts excuse is a bunch of garbage,” a senior US Army intelligence official told me. “The Afghans that know we’re doing all this PC cultural sensitivity crap are laughing their asses off at our stupidity.”
Explained the intelligence official: “They’re killing us because we’re ‘infidels’ occupying Islamic lands. It’s what the Koran and every imam over there is telling them, and no amount of cultural sensitivity is going to stop that or change the fact that we’re ‘infidels.’ ”
If I ever meet whoever suggested this, I will deck him.
Were I a parent or spouse of someone who’s died over there, I’d be looking for payback. Even someone who was wounded. Or got a toothache. Or a speck of dirt on their hands.
There comes a time when you decide who you are and whom you value.