Let’s face it, fishing can be boring. It can take a long time to get a bite and even then, unless you’re really lucky, it’s usually not a high yield operation. Some local yokel policemen in Afghanistan (not pictured above) ran headlong into this same problem when they tried their hand at angling recently. Looking at the problem and the gear they had at hand, the group clearly thought they’d figured out a better way. They decided to employ the solution so many people in the Middle East seem to turn to to solve just about any problem these days: an RPG . . .
From the Associated Press:
Afghan security forces have arrested eight policemen for accidentally killing six children when firing a rocket into a river to catch fish, officials said Wednesday.
The incident took place last Friday in the Doshi district of the northern province of Baghlan when policemen on the bank of a river fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the water.
“The rocket went astray and hit a place where children were playing, killing six and wounding two others,” the interior ministry said in a statement.
“Eight police personnel accused of misusing government weapons that killed these children have been arrested and handed over to military prosecutors for investigation,” it said.
Around here, the phrase “police militarization” means coppers carrying M16 rifles and tooling around in armored cars. Thankfully things haven’t progressed to the level where they’re packing RPGs in the trunks of their cruisers. Yet. And if the cops had been dedicated members of the Armed Intelligentsia, they’d know that shooting a gun into water is inherently dangerous. Just like bullets, RPGs can skip off of the surface like a stone. We’re guessing that they won’t be alive long enough to enjoy them, but we’ll be sending IGOTD trophies their way anyway.
Oh my god. I hope they hang ’em high. The grenades must be as common as glasses of mint tea. That part makes me envious…
I’m guessing a quick hanging is about the best they can hope for.
Crazy thing is, if done correctly, RPG fishing works. These idiots dun goofed tho, and now they will pay for it.
Really sad. If those Afghans punish these men half as bad as they used to punish women for uncovering their face, it will be at least that much justice.
used to?
yes. used to. ALP/ANP are not Taliban. Anymore…
Funny there’s still green on blue “incidents” then.
Yes and secretaries are not secretaries, they are Executive Assistants. Stewardesses are now Flight Attendants. And Al Qaeda is now Syrian Rebels.
Just one more argument for civilized entities to leave the fauna of that part of the world to kill each other.
+1
There is a key aspect, Mr. Leghorn, you are missing from this. In an Islamic country, if something goes wrong, it’s God’s will. Here, it’s just an administrative blame game.
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to kill fish with an RPG and all bets are off… These guys are cave men with cell phones…Very sad… I bet the rocket skipped like a rock…
i hate seeing misuse of american tax dollars like this.
Sadly one of the only things they’ve got going for them over the US is that here we reward cops for killing kids, hopefully these guys will get what they have coming instead of paid vacation or early retirement with full benefits and pension.
As much as I hate gun laws and do believe the RKBA applies to RPGs as well, I can’t imagine the havoc we’d have over here if all the drunk rednecks had them.
On that note, “Hold my beer” in Farsi – من آبجو را باز نگه دارید
If someone actually HAD been holding my drink, I wouldn’t have choked on it when I read your comment.
Can you imagine if the frat boys had them? Talk about animal house.
Sure, the crazy use of ordnance, guns, explosives, is about ‘rednecks,’ right? Not about urban-zone dwellers, eh? Why don’t you just call them ‘crackers’? Lots of mass-shootings by rednecks lately? That’s odd. It didn’t make the newspapers I read.
^ This.
It’s heartbreaking that in a land where kids are killed every day on purpose, these kids were killed by stupidity.
This, x 1,000,000,000
I know that we’re supposed to be polite to the nice Afghanis, but I don’t like that rule. It is not proper to regard these “police” as the type we have in our country. My battalion trained thousands of them for their government. They started by trying to teach them how to tie boot laces, and progressed to how to drive a car. Many of them have never seen any technology more complex than a plow before we got them. Giving them RPG’s is insanity.
A forked stick dragging behind a couple of staving cows in NOT a plow.
It’s hard to imagine an outcome with a soviet RPG hitting water where it doesn’t either skip off or simply sink. The forward portion of the warhead has to be crushed backwards in order to trigger the shaped charge behind and water isn’t exactly the right medium unless you’re able to fire nearly straight down into it. Almost any angle results in the above; skimming or fouling and sinking without detonation.
However, hand grenade fishing works just fine (if you can time it to get the right depth). Seems to me that men who had RPGs probably had access to hand grenades. One is left to wonder how much bravado was involved in choosing the RPG.
I learned something here. I like learning new things.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/rpg3.htm
Oh, and the launcher system is called the RPG-7, while the actual rocket grenade is called the PG-7.
Holy shit this sounds exactly like the ALP. The ALP are fucking hilarious. And completely retarded. Hence, this.
Stupid people in a stupid place doing stupid thing…somebody was bound to get hurt.
Smitty
this is why we can’t have nice things!
Reminds me of when we were waiting for eod to show up and we heard a massive boom. We then saw two dust covered afghans come running down the hill laughing complaining that they couldn’t hear. Apparently the two saw an ied and threw rocks it to set it off.
Darwin you failed big time here.
This would have been a crazy video to watch… yikes, RPG water skipping…