The Kill Team

[gloomyDAY]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-team-20110327

American Army soldiers are being tried for murder due to the fact that they indiscriminately killed Afghan civilians. The photos are quite disturbing. As a member of the United States Army, I take deep pride in my work, and as a future officer I find this behavior reprehensible.

War is savage, but there is no place in the Army for this conduct.

[Bob Riebe]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-team-20110327

American Army soldiers are being tried for murder due to the fact that they indiscriminately killed Afghan civilians. The photos are quite disturbing. As a member of the United States Army, I take deep pride in my work, and as a future officer I find this behavior reprehensible.

War is savage, but there is no place in the Army for this conduct.

If guilty they should be executed by firing squad but then that might send a message to any others who would consider doing this.

[Hondo]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-team-20110327

American Army soldiers are being tried for murder due to the fact that they indiscriminately killed Afghan civilians. The photos are quite disturbing. As a member of the United States Army, I take deep pride in my work, and as a future officer I find this behavior reprehensible.

War is savage, but there is no place in the Army for this conduct.

There is a place in all armies for this. Civilians are killed indiscriminately, but mostly by accident all the time. Fighting an enemy that wears no distinctive uniform for the sole purpose of blending into civilian crowds hopes this happens and happens often. Sometimes, if need be, they will make it happen. All these little incidents help build into a change of opinion towards the central government by the population and the world. Physical trophies have always been taken in war and always will be. Nothing new there either. If civilians choose to hang out with their feedom fighters on their own, well, you never know when a missle guided by a drone is going to zip in and break up that birthday bar-b-que. That's their choice and part of being in the game.

While I applaud your decision to be a member of the armed forces with a future of possibly leading young men into battle, once you are actually a warrior in command of an understrength platoon that was two companies the night before, you might find your viewpoint on whats "reprehensible" changing.

[Daniel]

Hondo, this wasn't friendly fire or mistaken identity, it was muder!

[MrJan]

Hondo, this wasn't friendly fire or mistaken identity, it was muder!

Even if it wasn't then it's pretty f***ing low to pose for photos with the deceased. I actually took some time to have a look at the pictures and I wish that I hadn't, in particular the ones of the first guy that they talk about where he's been stripped naked and they're grabbing his hair.

Evidentally Hondo didn't actually read the link though, where they describe the US force wandering up to a 15 year old farmer in the middle of a field, throwing a grenade (to make it seem like the lad had attacked them) and then shooting him. Obviously Hondo also missed where one of the guys who shot the kid said:

He was not a threat

This is also a wonderful little passage:

The soldiers knelt down behind a mud-brick wall. Then Morlock tossed a grenade toward Mudin, using the wall as cover. As the grenade exploded, he and Holmes opened fire, shooting the boy repeatedly at close range with an M4 carbine and a machine gun.

Mudin buckled, went down face first onto the ground. His cap toppled off. A pool of blood congealed by his head.

...

When a staff sergeant asked them what had happened, Morlock said the boy had been about to attack them with a grenade. "We had to shoot the guy," he said.

[gloomyDAY]

There is a place in all armies for this. Civilians are killed indiscriminately, but mostly by accident all the time. Fighting an enemy that wears no distinctive uniform for the sole purpose of blending into civilian crowds hopes this happens and happens often. Sometimes, if need be, they will make it happen. All these little incidents help build into a change of opinion towards the central government by the population and the world. Physical trophies have always been taken in war and always will be. Nothing new there either. If civilians choose to hang out with their feedom fighters on their own, well, you never know when a missle guided by a drone is going to zip in and break up that birthday bar-b-que. That's their choice and part of being in the game.

While I applaud your decision to be a member of the armed forces with a future of possibly leading young men into battle, once you are actually a warrior in command of an understrength platoon that was two companies the night before, you might find your viewpoint on whats "reprehensible" changing.

I think you're absolutely wrong. I've never been taught that it is acceptable to kill unarmed civilians by luring them out into the open, and planting a weapon on them once they've been killed. Killing unarmed civilians is juxtaposed to what the U.S. Army is trying to achieve in Afghanistan. My Master Sergeant was stating that the reason the Iraq War to so long to quell was because of the indiscriminate killing. You don't want to upset the local populace, especially if they are the focal point of your military policy. This is just an incident that was caused by a lack of good leadership, so quite similar to the incident at Abu Ghraib.

Just curious...did you even read the article? You're a little off the mark.

[Retro Formula 1]

I think there are some people that think the way Hondo does. This appalling apathy for human life is sickening and hateful.

I'm just glad that people like Gloomy are the norm for Soldiers and not people like Hondo.

[Retro Formula 1]

Bearing in mind that these are not mistaken killings but what appears to be quite widespread war crimes, and taking into account that this information has been supressed at the highest levels within the Pentagon (and possibly beyond), is it now time for a full War Crimes investigation within the US Army by the War Crimes commission?

[Dave B]

Before I criticise (to put it mildly!) Hondo, I'd like clarification that he has read and understood the link, rather than assuming it was a case of friendly fire. :\

[Hondo]

I did not read the entire article and haven't yet. But I will. I'm not saying killing unarmed civilians is acceptable, I'm saying it happens. Always has and always will. I do say it's more likely to occur when an army is up against an enemy that uses hit and run tactics or remotely fired munitions. In small units, after repeated causualties with nothing to show in return, everybody becomes the enemy. That was a major problem in Vietnam. The 11B (infantry) classification in the US Army is one of the easiest classifications they have to meet. The Army, just like the civilian population, doesn't always have people that are playing the game with a full deck of cards. Sometimes they don't have the maturity to handle it. Holmes at age 19, cannot legally buy a pistol or booze in most if not all of the United States. But over there, he is in a position to potentially call in air strikes and burn hundreds of people, unquestioned. So you've got a 21 year old and a 19 year old, probably raised thinking playing first person shooters on an xbox 360 is a reflection of some form of reality, free to operate where they are the law. What do you expect? As far as upsetting the local populations goes, you are doing that just by being there. You came in and took their personal arms, you question them at will, make them provide ID, search their houses at will, and ask them questions about the insurgents. After you leave, the insurgents come down and slap them around until they know everything about the gringos that visited today. It's not our culture, they don't want our culture, say excuse me, get out, come home.

As an aside, it seems I remember the 15 year old was poppie farming. Some culture may consider what the soldiers did as executing a narcotics supplier. Who knows.