Achtung Minen!

That’s German for “Danger, Will Robinson!  There’s mines up ahead!”  Yeah, I know, wrong language, unless you’re on the coalition base at Mazar-e-Sharif.

I was surprised to find out that portions of BAF are still riddled with land mines left over from the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.  The Red Army dumped untold thousands of mines wherever they thought they might be able to kill a few civilians and basically terrorize the populace at large.

Every now and then, I see groups of soldiers and civilians planting little white flags on metal wires in the ground, on fields behind big T-wall barriers.  They look like the little flags that the lawn service guys leave in your front lawn after doing their thing.  Except that these are a bit more ominous.

On the up side, the residual minefields are pretty well identified and cordoned off, so there’s no chance I’ll go blundering in.

Anyhow, back to the combat engineers.  They’re out in these fields, detecting and flagging and disarming or removing the mines.  I’ve got a better idea.

We’ve got a prison full of bad guys here.  Some are really bad actors, some are just bozos who drank the Taliban's Kool-Aid.  Some are willing and eager to spill their guts to the interrogators, some are tight-lipped.  Some are Taliban commanders, most are just foot soldiers.  So here’s the plan.  We get a few big Coleman coolers filled with sweet ice tea, and huge platters of fried chicken and potato salad.  And we take the prisoners out for an old-fashioned picnic.  Can’t feed ‘em ribs, now, can we?

After they’ve eaten their fill, it’s time for fun and games.  Sack races, anyone?  How about three-legged races?  Send out the lower-level minions first, let the tough old guys watch as we prove the axiom that anyone can be a minesweeper once.  I bet there would be a lot of loosened tongues after a few detonations.

Nobody from the prison has bought into my idea. Go figure.