When the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade arrived in Afghanistan, its leader, Col. Harry D. Tunnell IV, openly sneered at the U.S. military's counterinsurgency strategy. The old-school commander barred his officers from even mentioning the term and told shocked U.S. and NATO officials that he was uninterested in winning the trust of the Afghan people.
Instead, he said, his soldiers would simply hunt and kill as many Taliban fighters as possible, as dictated by the brigade's motto, "Strike and Destroy."
If this is an accurate portrayal of the brigade's commander, he shouldn't be in our Army. His failure to control his troops who may have committed crimes while in Afghanistan makes his command failure even bigger.
And who the heck let a commander essentially go rogue and ignore the campaign plan to win? And fail to keep his troops from one platoon, it seems, in line? If the brigade commander was this out of bounds, commanders up the chain of command need to pay for failing to command him or remove him.
Again, I don't know if this is necessarily an accurate portrayal of 5th Stryker Brigade's actions and its commanding officer. But if so, this is worse than any crime. It was stupid.
