“Members of U.S. platoon in Afghanistan accused of killing civilians for sport
By Craig Whitlock
Saturday, September 18, 2010; 9:39 PM
“AT JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASH. The U.S. soldiers hatched a plan as simple as it was savage: to randomly target and kill an Afghan civilian, and to get away with it.”
“According to charging documents, the unprovoked, fatal attack on Jan. 15 was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones.
The subsequent investigation has raised accusations about whether the military ignored warnings that the out-of-control soldiers were committing atrocities. The father of one soldier said he repeatedly tried to alert the Army after his son told him about the first killing, only to be rebuffed. “
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803935.html?hpid=topnews
This is the worst possible news I can imagine from Afghanistan or any other place where we have troops deployed. The pre-meditated decision to commit murder of civilians in a foreign country where we are not very welcome for multiple reasons is certain to fuel the flames of opposition and cause more casualties among our troops.
We’ve always known that murders take place in wars. That excludes those deaths that happen as the result of unit actions ordered by civil and military leaders and carried out to achieve military gains, captured ground, etc. In today’s American armed forces great care is taken when planning and executing campaigns and missions to minimize loss of life among non-combatants. These plans actually may increase the possibility of American casualties. The IDF made a similar decision during their incursion into Jenin operating against Hammas and other insurgents. Most 1st world nations make every effort to avoid civilian casualties during combat operations.
Unfortunately, the nature of armed combat provides many opportunities for those who wish to commit murder and other crimes against people. Very few civilians are going to oppose heavily armed troops. The weapons available today make it very easy to kill at long distances without making very much noise. In the heavily mechanized environs of modern warfare, suppressed rifles may allow a murderer to escape notice. The confusion that exists during combat may allow someone to intentionally misidentify a non-combatant as armed and engaging one of our units.
The armed forces leaders are acutely aware that murdering civilians only makes their chances of winning a conflict much less likely. Societies have long memories. Afghanistan has been at war for centuries under one banner or another, invaded by one nation or another. Its people can hold a grudge forever. We’ve done what we can to minimize new hatreds and grudges. Now a group of criminals wearing the uniform of my nation has committed murders that reduced the integrity and character of our armed forces to that of the old Soviet army and of tribal warlords. We can’t claim any moral superiority when we allow soldiers to commit murders, apparently for sport. And that’s what it seems to be.
Men who have no morality, no ethics, and who falsely claim to be soldiers, have disgraced our Army. They planned and carried out murders, dismembered corpses and kept body parts in an Islamic nation, where rapid burial of the entire body is necessary for reasons of faith. The whistle blower in this case was beaten and threatened by the other criminals.
There was apparently an attempt to bring these crimes and plans for subsequent murders to the attention of several military agencies. The delays involved allowed more murders to take place. There should have been no delay in beginning an investigation of these allegations. How much delay was due to the military situation and its demands remains to be seen. What has happened is detailed in the article cited above; charges have been filed against suspected murderers and accomplices. The military will take a hard line with these men if they are found guilty in courts-martial. Soldiers value their personal honor and that of their units.
It may be that these men will claim that their operational training led them to commit these crimes. The de-humanization of the enemy that all armies use to help ready their forces to engage in combat is likely to surface as a defense. If so, it will be invalid. Soldiers know right from wrong, necessary deaths in combat from wanton murders. They will not deal kindly with men who have murdered the innocent.
The oversight system that might have caught these criminals after the first murder failed. No one wants to believe their unit mates are criminals, nor do they wish to unjustly accuse them and damage unit cohesiveness. But soldiers know that such crimes can’t go unpunished. And they know that murderers are not and will never again be soldiers.
We’ve already faced a series of such crimes in Iraq, committed by mercenaries. We have there another reason our nation should never use mercenaries to replace soldiers. Soldiers place honor above money. Mercenaries fight for the highest bidder. They are not soldiers no matter how many years of military service they put in. Once they stop working for the nation, they are outside the Pale as far as I am concerned.
I’ll try to follow this case. It will be as damaging as the idiots who want to burn Qurans and forbid the construction of Islamic centers. America has some remaining chance to leave some Afghans with a favorable impression of us. Common criminals and religious fanatics make it hard to convince anyone on the ground we’re not common thugs like too many of the USSR troops who purposely built bombs into toys to maim and murder children.
Keep the gallows operable in Leavenworth.
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