News · London Times: Alcohol banned at US base in Afghanistan after airstrike that killed 125

# by Luke on 8 September 09

Alcohol banned at US base in Afghanistan after airstrike that killed 125
London Times

After a Nato airstrike killed as many as 125 people last week, General Stanley McChrystal was keen to get the situation under control – fast.

When he tried to contact his underlings to find out what had happened, however, he found, to his fury, that many of them were either drunk or too hungover to respond.

Complaining in his daily Commander’s Update that too many people had been “partying it up”, General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), banned alcohol at his headquarters yesterday, admonishing staff for not having “their heads in the right place” on Friday morning — a few hours after the deadly attack.

What was an oasis of coffee shops and bars where commanders could enjoy a beer or three will now be a dry area.German soldiers in northern Afghanistan have been criticised for calling in an American F15 Strike Eagle to drop two 500lb bombs on a pair of hijacked fuel tankers in Kunduz at about 2.30am on Friday. Scores of local people who had gathered to siphon fuel from the lorries were killed in the explosions.

Nato began an investigation later that morning but military sources said that General McChrystal was furious because he “couldn’t get hold of the people he needed to get hold of and he blamed it on all-night partying”.