Unfriendly fire

Once an American military officer begins to move up in rank, his career usually becomes more and more managerial and far less dangerous, especially for those rare leaders who attain the rank of general.

They rarely see the front lines or combat duty, because their jobs are to make it all work. They’re the CEOs with stars on their shoulders.

Maj. Gen. Harold Greene was an engineer by training and was on his first deployment to a war zone, there only to prepare for the time this year when U.S. troops are replaced by the Afghan soldiers we’ve trained.

It was one of those U.S.-trained Afghan soldiers who killed Greene and wounded 15 others yesterday. When these insider attacks take place — and they do all too frequently — they’re called “green-on-blue” killings.

In 2012 alone, 60 of our coalition soldiers were killed by those we considered our allies. It’s difficult to imagine what level of blind trust it will take to turn over the future of Afghanistan to its own people at the end of the year.

Or better yet, we could just leave tomorrow.

I’m Pat McMahon.

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