Humans make mistakes, some little, some a little bigger and some mistakes are simply so huge that they deserve a spotlight shined on them. Mistakenly dropping food and weapons to an enemy in a time of war ranks right up there with the word "massive."
NATO officials have
admitted that containers were dropped from a helicopter, last month, into a Taliban-controlled area of Zabul province in Aghanistan. In those containers were pallets of rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, water and food.
Those pallets were supposed to go to a police checkpoint in Ghazni, which is a remote section of Zabul.
Instead of being dropped into the right area, according to Nato's General Carlos Branco, the navigator confused two similar grid references and dropped the supplies in the wrong spot where it was picked up by the Taliban.
All of this has been reported to the Internal Security Affairs Commission of the Wolesi Jirga, which is the Afghan parliament's lower house.
Politics being what they are, Afghan politicians are accusing NATO of purposely supplying the Taliban with food and weapons, an accusation that NATO denies; General Branco says it was "human error."
At Nato headquarters in Brussels, a spokesmen tells reporters that they are not "fired up about it," then continues by saying: "It sounds like someone made a mistake. It was a cock-up rather than a conspiracy."
They conclude with: "The forces on the ground are working to get the message across that we do not deliberately supply the Taliban with arms."
To err is human, to forgive divine is the old expression by Alexander Pope, but when the enemy is launching grenades at NATO forces and soldiers, it might be a little hard to be so generous knowing that NATO is the one that supplied those arms, accidentally or not.
NATO Mistakenly Feeds and Arms Taliban, Calls it a 'Cock-Up'
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