Alleged Special Forces Atrocities

Military.com released an article today claiming US Special Forces may have committed atrocities in Wardak Province Afghanistan.

An Army Special Forces A-Team may have been responsible, or at least complicit, in the torture, deaths and disappearances of 18 Afghan civilians in volatile Wardak province in late 2012 and early 2013, according to a report by Rolling Stone magazine. Under the headline “The A-Team Killings,” the article included interviews with witnesses, families of the victims and an Afghan interpreter for the Americans that added detail to the long-standing allegations threatening the continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan. As part of a five-month investigation of the Wardak incidents, Rolling Stone reporter Matthieu Aikins interviewed Zikria Kandahari, the interpreter, who has been jailed by the Afghans for his alleged involvement. Kandahari claimed that he was being framed by the Americans from Operational Detachment Alpha 3124, based in Fort Bragg, N.C., which operated in the Nerkh district of Wardak province.

www.military.com...

Another expose from Rolling Stone Magazine? This one directed at Delta Force operatives(?) Seems they might of been running counter-insurgency ops against insurgents and got caught doing what they do.

I find their "moral compass" confusing.

The entire attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan were atrocities.

These were war crimes and crimes against humanity based completely on lies.

Afghanistan was based on the 9/11 lie.

Iraq was based on the WMD lie...

reply to post by gladtobehere


I couldn't agree more, not to mention the sanctions that killed so many.

All wars are filled with horrific killings such as these, especially in the age of occupation - there will always be guys looking to satisfy their bloodlust.

I'm sure glad these media outlets are unbiased and fair reporting on the stories. After all, they have at least a few stories about the atrocities committed by the Taliban and AQ fighters....right? Oh, where did they misplace those.. Hmm... They must be around somewhere...

..Or the enemy has more than just Inspire magazine publishing for their side?

Personally, I'll be interested to hear about this *AFTER* the war and not while the enemy can and does eat this crap up like a chocolate Sunday for re-use as propaganda against us. The least they could do is some of their own work, but why bother? Americans burn Americans like it's a sport, to the exclusion of much written on the other side.

Makes ya wonder whose side some of these people are on in the first place.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Regardless of the moral justifications for the war in Afghanistan people have got to realise that war by it's very nature isn't nice and sometimes unsavoury and otherwise unacceptable behaviour and acts are necessary.
People have become far too sensitive - the reality of war isn't nice.

I can't condone the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians nor the needless executions and torture of captured insurgents but I'm not sure this is such an instance. These are highly trained and highly disciplined soldiers with specific orders and instructions. As a rule these type of people rarely act without due reason or orders.
Sure, such allegations need to be investigated but I think we've gone too far in vilifying those who carry out the 'dirty' deeds that sometimes have to be done in war.

You are quite correct in pointing out the abject failure of many MSM publications of providing some balance and reporting the brutality of Taliban soldiers towards both Afghan civilians and Allied military personnel.
What about the countless instances of the Taliban forcibly using unwilling civilians as human shields and then exploiting all 'collateral' damage in an all to willing western media?
What about the numerous beheadings and other acts of atrocity carried out by the Taliban and it's supporters?

I could go on but I'm sure you get the gist.

Is it because stories of Taliban excesses don't sell magazines / newspapers or is it simply because there is a disproportionate number of self-haters in MSM - or is there another more subtle agenda being played out here?

Afghanistan and Iraq were not our fights. We were there on false pretenses, lies, and false flag operations. What happens to our citizens there IS OUR OWN FAULT and nobody elses. And war crimes and atrocities should always be investigated thoroughly and reported in the news.

Afghanistan and Iraq did not attack Americans.....until we invaded them.

reply to post by Freeborn

Is it because stories of Taliban excesses don't sell magazines / newspapers or is it simply because there is a disproportionate number of self-haters in MSM - or is there another more subtle agenda being played out here?

That is a very good question and I wish I knew the answer to it. It seems a full court press right now too. Some Brits got tagged recently on something they did, now it's the most elite of the US Special Forces. I suppose the next story will be the Commander of NATO forces himself, caught molesting school children in a closet or something. While, indeed, the silence of the other side of this fight is deafening.

Then again, American Media was pretty quiet when the Taliban were in power and shooting women through the head in public displays within their UN supplied sports stadium for the amusement of onlookers.

Heck, I'm as fair about calling out our own guys as theirs when evil doing is shown to have happened. (See my threads and comments about Ssgt Bales for one good example, sadly). It would be nice to see media at least give a 'good college try' at being a little balanced.

Then again..... United States forces will allow them to come around again after a story like this. The Taliban would likely shoot THEM on sight, if they ran a comparable piece and then dared show their face in Afghanistan without heavy protection afterward. I suppose that is a factor too

I found Ben Griffins statements about US personnel pretty unsettling.
These are taken from wiki, but can be verified quite easily:

In an interview[2] for The Sunday Telegraph, he told Defence Correspondent Sean Rayment:

The Americans had this catch-all approach to lifting suspects. The tactics were draconian and completely ineffective. The Americans were doing things like chucking farmers into Abu Ghraib or handing them over to the Iraqi authorities, knowing full well they were going to be tortured.

The Americans had a well-deserved reputation for being trigger happy. In the three months that I was in Iraq, the soldiers I served with never shot anybody. When you asked the Americans why they killed people, they would say 'we were up against the tough foreign fighters'. I didn't see any foreign fighters in the time I was over there.

I can remember coming in off one operation which took place outside Baghdad, where we had detained some civilians who were clearly not insurgents, they were innocent people. I couldn't understand why we had done this, so I said to my troop commander 'would we have behaved in the same way in the Balkans or Northern Ireland?' He shrugged his shoulders and said 'this is Iraq', and I thought 'and that makes it all right?'

As far as I was concerned that meant that because these people were a different colour or a different religion, they didn't count as much. You cannot invade a country pretending to promote democracy and behave like that.

As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human, untermenschen. You could almost split the Americans into two groups: ones who were complete crusaders, intent on killing Iraqis, and the others who were in Iraq because the Army was going to pay their college fees. They had no understanding or interest in the Arab culture. The Americans would talk to the Iraqis as if they were stupid and these weren't isolated cases, this was from the top down. There might be one or two enlightened officers who understood the situation a bit better, but on the whole that was their general attitude. Their attitude fuelled the insurgency. I think the Iraqis detested them.

He is quoted in an article in The Scotsman as saying:

"I saw a lot of things in Baghdad that were illegal or just wrong. I knew, so others must have known, that this was not the way to conduct operations if you wanted to win the hearts and minds of the local population. . . and if you can't win the hearts and minds of the people, you can't win the war."[4]

wiki link

This is one persons view, and I would be surprised if the same thinking applied to any SF, although it has to be said that over a long period of time, certain mindsets can prevail and spread.

I'm also unsure of what to think about Ben Griffin.
On the one hand I admire his stance, but on the other given the nature of the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, it may be a bit naive.
Afghanistan is and always has been a brutal place, and there's no getting away from the fact that it will affect people in different ways, sometimes to the detriment of what some perceive as the moral high ground.
The recent trial of the Marines kind of proves this.

The fact of the matter is that war and violence brutalises people, and in some cases interferes with their moral compass.

it says ALLEGED!!!!

means no proof.

geeze!

tsingtao
it says ALLEGED!!!!

means no proof.

geeze!

edit on 30391811730am2013 by tsingtao because: (no reason given)

Alleged means nothing of the sort.

It's just a catchall phrase used by the media and lawyers for a variety of reasons.
It means it hasn't been proved in a court of law is all, which is completely different from "means no proof".

budski

tsingtao
it says ALLEGED!!!!

means no proof.

geeze!

edit on 30391811730am2013 by tsingtao because: (no reason given)

Alleged means nothing of the sort.

It's just a catchall phrase used by the media and lawyers for a variety of reasons.
It means it hasn't been proved in a court of law is all, which is completely different from "means no proof".

ya, no proof.

accused is more like it.
but still, NO PROOF!

lol.

budski

tsingtao
it says ALLEGED!!!!

means no proof.

geeze!

edit on 30391811730am2013 by tsingtao because: (no reason given)

Alleged means nothing of the sort.

It's just a catchall phrase used by the media and lawyers for a variety of reasons.
It means it hasn't been proved in a court of law is all, which is completely different from "means no proof".

Its becoming and has been another word for protecting sloppy journalism or flat out propaganda.

Logarock

budski

tsingtao
it says ALLEGED!!!!

means no proof.

geeze!

edit on 30391811730am2013 by tsingtao because: (no reason given)

Alleged means nothing of the sort.

It's just a catchall phrase used by the media and lawyers for a variety of reasons.
It means it hasn't been proved in a court of law is all, which is completely different from "means no proof".

Its becoming and has been another word for protecting sloppy journalism or flat out propaganda.

I won't disagree with that.

But, at the same time, here's the problem I have.
It's common knowledge that war crimes occur all the time.
There have been court cases, convictions, videos, eyewitness accounts by the hundreds.

And yet some people STILL won't admit that they happen.

I wonder why that is.

reply to post by budski


One of the problems, maybe the primary problem, that reporting war crimes has fallen under is many believe anti-Americanism/whoever to be the driving force behind the reports. That there is hardly a war crime report that is not the product of some agenda. Its clear that war crime is often used as a prop to smear the entire effort.

But yes war crimes do occur.

Logarock
reply to post by budski

 

One of the problems, maybe the primary problem, that reporting war crimes has fallen under is many believe anti-Americanism/whoever to be the driving force behind the reports. That there is hardly a war crime report that is not the product of some agenda. Its clear that war crime is often used as a prop to smear the entire effort.

But yes war crimes do occur.

A fair point, but something to consider is that it may be that way because the US commits the majority of war crimes.

I was pretty taken aback by the comments Ben Griffin made, and from reading an awful lot about this over the years, there appears to be an element of lawlessness or "anything goes" kind of attitude amongst some, particularly private contractors, or as they call them elsewhere, "mercenaries".

It's also true to say that in any conflict and occupation, particularly one as badly organised as the Iraq occupation there will always be an small number who "mis-behave".
It's happened with British troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is little doubt in my mind that it happens with US troops as well, and as they have larger numbers of troops in the region, the number of "bad apples" is bound to be higher.

reply to post by budski


Point taken but it still amazes me that many of the enemy combatants that the US has faced in the last century commit war crimes, according to the Geneva Convention and just basic human considerations as we have it, as a matter of policy and standard operational procedure. And yet only a select few actors, mostly western, get called on the carpet for relatively minor, in comparison, war crimes.

A desperate religious psychopath, who's parents are financial rewarded for his/her acts, walks into a Jerusalem pizza shop or night club, lights themselves off and is a martyr. Even if held as a misguided act, these actions are still used to question the position they were protesting against. Yet the actions of an Israeli border guard that might shoot first and ask questions later is reported as symptom of a criminal régime.

There are voices out there right now that justify Serbian war atrocities while condemning American/NATO intervention for any number of reasons and from any number of positions. It is in this vain that most of the pointed journalism reporting american war crimes is had. They will take the action of one solider if they must and indict the whole of american foreign policy. While Iran's support of Hezbollah and all they do and have done is some sort of plucky patriotic effort.

reply to post by Logarock


I think the major issue with regards to reporting is that western governments, and by extension their armed forces have taken the stance of having the moral high ground.
When this moral high ground is not adhered to, then reporters go actively looking for war crimes, and unfortunately, they find them.

Of course without some kind of moral high ground, it is impossible for politicians to get public support for war, so in a lot of ways they cause the problems themselves.
The embedding of journalists probably seemed like a good idea, but once the "novelty" of being part of a unit, and the kind of Stockholm Effect it promotes wears off, those same journalists are going to look for things they deem "newsworthy" especially if public opinion starts to turn.

I've no doubt that all kinds of atrocities happen everywhere there is conflict, but when a government sets itself up as the moral arbiter of what is right and wrong, and bangs on about "promoting democracy" it's bound to come back and bite them on the arse at some point.

reply to post by budski


Yes, one generally finds that most of the nations we have been at war with appeal to nationalism/tribalism with a strong dose of pure idealist fantasy as their primary motivational tool to rally their troops. For those that take a moral high ground stance the pickings become much easer for the searchers for the "truth" to have a go at. Nothing sells like a little hypocrisy and tarnish where it can be found. Superman's got a stain on his cape is a great story. However what doesn't sell are atrocities committed by people that have already said from the outset that they wouldn't take prisoners. In fact what does sell in the case of Nazi Germany for example is the depth of the horror and not any revelations about violations of stated high ground.

The Army admitted nothing. They told their readers at military.com that a Rolling Stone reporter is asking questions about the incident. The Army will not answer or respond to the questions. Case Closed

In fact what does sell in the case of Nazi Germany for example is the depth of the horror and not any revelations about violations of stated high ground.

An interesting quote. I am assuming you are stating that elite units like the Leibstandarte may have taken part in these crimes-however the depth of the crimes through out all units was more important that the realization they were committed by highly skilled, motivated and intensely loyal solders. I think?

Am I correct, or is there a different meaning?

spooky24
The Army admitted nothing. They told their readers at military.com that a Rolling Stone reporter is asking questions about the incident. The Army will not answer or respond to the questions. Case Closed

Well, just because the army is stonewalling (something they are good at) it doesn't mean the case is closed.

It just means the Army is doing what they do well and hiding behind secrecy.

I'd go as far as to suggest that the fact the Army is stonewalling is all the more reason to pursue the truth of what happened, whether that truth is unpalatable or not.