Posted by Kromey at 3:56pm Oct 15 '09Another Nato source confirmed the allegations of Italian money going to insurgents. "The Italian intelligence service made the payments [...] of tens of thousands of dollars regularly to individual insurgent commanders. It was to stop Italian casualties that would cause political difficulties at home."Executive summary: Italy secretly was paying off Taliban leaders to ensure they wouldn't be attacked. Then they held up that region to the press saying, "Look how awesome we are!" When the French took over, the Italians didn't tell them about the bribes, and as a result the French grossly underestimated the risk (1 combat death in an entire year => low-risk region). The Taliban, angry that they weren't being paid anymore, attacked the French, outnumbering them 3-to-1.
It's pretty impressive that with those odds, and with how under-equipped they were for such a full-scale firefight, the French only lost 10 soldiers (21 more wounded) in the battle that lasted throughout the entire night.
Italy fucked France - Kromey