NZ's blood medal in Afghanistan

Top medal from US for Kiwi SAS commander
THE COMMANDER of the New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan has been awarded the United States' highest decoration for foreign officers.

Lieutenant Colonel Chris Parsons was presented the Defense Meritorious Service medal on Tuesday in Kabul by General David Petraeus, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, in recognition of his "outstanding command, leadership, and unwavering commitment to the mission".

Parsons has served as head of the 70-strong SAS unit known as Task Force 81 since October, directing counter-insurgency operations in greater Kabul in co-operation with the Afghan police's crisis response unit, which operates under the SAS's mentorship.

His citation reads that during one of the most hostile periods of the war since 2001, Parsons had "inspired results that far exceed the size of forces under his command". His work had helped the coalition "gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term", by "removing numerous key insurgent leaders and facilitators from the battlefield".

In the wikileaks dump before this wikileaks dump there was lovely PR advice for the US on how to deal with NZ and keep us pacified from asking too many hard questions about why we are actually in Afghanistan, so it shouldn't be surprising that in the wake of killing civilians in Iraq (of which the blame has been placed on the civilians for firing first, not the NZ SAS troops who occupy and prop up a corrupt regime for oil and gas pipelines), we get our very first blood medal from the military industrial complex for a great job so the hobbits back home are suitably pacified by our bravery for oil.

A 'good' war is like a good rape.

NZ should be out of Afghanistan now.