General

Olympic-sized distraction?

Reporter says troops were glued to Olympic hockey game while insurgents bombed a bridge

Michael Yon, a militantly pro-war reporter embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, is accusing Canadian troops of failing to protect a bridge just outside Kandahar that was bombed during the men’s hockey finals on Sunday night. “While some troops were wasting time fixated on the Olympics,” Yon wrote on his Facebook page, “10 minutes away a major target was left vulnerable. If we can persuade the Taliban to play hockey, or if we can learn to play their sport—Guerrilla Warfare—maybe we can score some points.” According to Yon, the “easily defensible” bridge was targeted by a suicide car bomber and had a bomb strapped to it in an attack that killed a U.S. soldier and injured “several others.” “Now, the bridge is damaged and large military vehicles and fuel trucks cannot use it,” Yon writes. Yon blames the Canadian commander in Kandahar, Brigadier-General Daniel Ménard, for the accident and is awaiting answers from Ménard’s office. “Meanwhile, missions continue to be cancelled due to failure to secure that bridge.”

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