After learning of the incident, Rahman allegedly beat the boy's mother for reporting the crime. It was at this point, the Green Berets had had enough. Quinn and Martland went to confront Rahman.
"He confessed to the crime and laughed about it, and said it wasn't a big deal. Even when we patiently explained how serious the charge was, he kept laughing," Quinn said.
According to reports of the incident, Quinn and Martland shoved Abdul Rahman to the ground. It was the only way to get their point across, according to Quinn. "As a man, as a father of a young boy myself at the time, I felt obliged to step in to prevent further repeat occurrences," Quinn said.
I do not want to begin to list all of the things that were wrong with what they did. It would divert time from addressing two points -
1) physical confrontation is not the way to deal with Rahman, unless you break enough bones that he will not want to set his minions and henchmen on you for fear you will break more bones.
2) there is every reason to believe that Quinn and Martland understood this, as well as understood the rules governing the conduct of American forces and how to deal with violations of both criminal and moral law by indigenous personnnel. And that they went and did what they did in spite of that.
The ROE for stuff like this sucks better than the best Dyson cleaner, but they are what we have told our troops they have to live with. Don't like it? Go see the 1st Sergeant/company commander and tell them you cannot/will not play by the rules and would like to be allowed to go home.
Or if you are SF troops with all sorts of training in winning the hearts and minds of the little people while freeing them from their oppressive/repressive overlords you (and maybe a battle buddy) "do something about it" while keeping your big mouth shut and letting everybody guess why you have that big [expletive]it-eating grin all the time.
They were punished by the Army at the time -- but why exactly Martland is now being discharged is a matter of dispute. Army sources cited his accolades, including being named runner-up for 2014 Special Warfare Training Group Instructor of the Year from a pool of 400 senior leaders in Special Forces, in questioning the decision.
It's those darned dots again. They are all over the place but nobody wants to connect them.
Martland, though, has been fighting to stay in the Army. In February 2015, the Army conducted a "Qualitative Management Program" review board. His supporters suspect because Martland had a "relief for cause" evaluation in his service record, the U.S. Army ordered Martland to be "involuntary discharged" from the Army by Nov. 1, 2015.
The U.S. Army could not confirm the specifics of Martland's separation from service due to privacy reasons, according to Wayne Hall, an Army spokesman.
Critics point to the Army drawdown as a reason. One former Green Beret said any negative mark on a soldier's record can get them kicked out, given the drawdown.
Martland still has received the highest scores in evaluations since the incident.
"It's sad to think that a child rapist is put above one of our elite military operators. Sergeant Martland was left with no other choice but to intervene in a bad situation. ... The Army should stand up for what's right and should not side with a corrupt Afghan police officer," Hunter told Fox News.
Part of the current administration's legacy is going to be the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The closer we get to the date picked for that to happen the more the Afghans are going to want to settle scores racked up while we were still in a powerful enough position to rack them up. Looking at who is going to be in the seat of power very firmly when the Americans leave (not the mayor and city council from Boys' Town) it is time to make sure each individual's reach of power and the reach of those they are allied with is firmly established. If they are not aided by the administration in settling some scores there are all sorts of more embarrassing issues that can be brought up to sully the administration's reputation.
The local commander (Rahman) is apparently one the locals want to keep around and they are probably willing to expend some political coin making sure he will remain beholden to them. This is well within keeping of the rules they play by which, rather obviously, are very much like how our own politicians play the game.
In other words, our veneer of civilization is not even glued down.
stay safe.
