Article about murder & mutilation by US troops

[marcustullius]

This was posted on SA

 

This article from Rolling Stone is about "The Kill Team". I am going to trim it up a bit but leave the relevant parts. The link to the article is right here if you'd like to read it all. And you really should. It is a fantastic article.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/death-zone-20110327/0480374

 

 

Note, the pictures here are NSFW they show dead and mutilated corpses of Afghan civilians and US army servicemen posing next to them.

The Kill Team

How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon

 

You may have heard of them last week with the pictures they took:

 

http://i.imgur.com/Jj3Qw.jpg

 

Well here are some more. Also there is a video. This is the video description:

The clip presented here is excerpted from 'Death Zone,' a chilling video collected and shared by members of the kill team of U.S. soldiers who murdered civilians in Afghanistan and mutilated the corpses. Shot through thermal imaging, the grainy footage shows two Afghans suspected of planting an IED being blown up by an airstrike. While the deaths may have resulted from a legitimate combat engagement, the video itself represents a clear violation of Army standards. Scenes of the attack have been edited into a 15-minute music video, complete with a rock soundtrack and a title card. This clip from the video picks up shortly before the airstrike begins, accompanied by the song En Vie by Apocalyptica, a cello rock band from Helsinki. The video ends with grisly still images of the casualties, followed by closing credits. It was passed from soldier to soldier on thumb drives and hard drives, the gruesome video filed alongside clips of TV shows, UFC fights and films such as Iron Man 2.

 

 

Here are some more pics

 

http://i.imgur.com/QH33x.jpg

 

This is the body of 15-year-old Gul Muddin, who was murdered by members of the "kill team." Previously published photos show Cpl. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew Holmes holding up the body like a trophy.

 

http://i.imgur.com/uRjDV.jpg

 

The bodies of these two men, which show up in a least two photos, were reportedly not killed by the 3rd platoon "kill team." "Those were some innocent farmers that got killed," an anonymous source told Rolling Stone.

 

http://i.imgur.com/35WWm.jpg

 

 

 

Cpl. Morlock, who pleaded guilty last week and will testify against other "kill team" members, posing with an Afghan child. "At one point," the Rolling Stone caption reads, "soldiers in 3rd Platoon talked about throwing candy out of a Stryker vehicle as they drove through a village and shooting the children who came running to pick up the sweets."

 

More are found here:

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...0110327/0602176

 

Here are some excerpts. Again, please read the article however because its really gruesome and terrible, but these things should be known by the public.

The Kill Team

How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon

 

Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan, a group of American infantrymen reached a momentous decision: It was finally time to kill a haji.

 

Among the men of Bravo Company, the notion of killing an Afghan civilian had been the subject of countless conversations, during lunchtime chats and late-night bull sessions. For weeks, they had weighed the ethics of bagging "savages" and debated the probability of getting caught.

 

 

 

 

While the officers of 3rd Platoon peeled off to talk to a village elder inside a compound, two soldiers walked away from the unit until they reached the far edge of the village. There, in a nearby poppy field, they began looking for someone to kill. "The general consensus was, if we are going to do something that stinking crazy, no one wanted anybody around to witness it," one of the men later told Army investigators.

 

 

 

He was a smooth-faced kid, about 15 years old. Not much younger than they were: Morlock was 21, Holmes was 19. His name, they would later learn, was Gul Mudin, a common name in Afghanistan. He was wearing a little cap and a Western-style green jacket. He held nothing in his hand that could be interpreted as a weapon, not even a shovel. The expression on his face was welcoming. "He was not a threat," Morlock later confessed.

 

Morlock and Holmes called to him in Pashto as he walked toward them, ordering him to stop. The boy did as he was told. He stood still.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Back at the wall, soldiers arriving on the scene found the body and the bloodstains on the ground. Morlock and Holmes were crouched by the wall, looking excited. 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.

 

It was an unlikely story: a lone Taliban fighter, armed with only a grenade, attempting to ambush a platoon in broad daylight, let alone in an area that offered no cover or concealment. Even the top officer on the scene, Capt. Patrick Mitchell, thought there was something strange about Morlock's story. "I just thought it was weird that someone would come up and throw a grenade at us," Mitchell later told investigators.

 

Instead, he ordered Staff Sgt. Kris Sprague to "make sure" the boy was dead. Sprague raised his rifle and fired twice.

 

 

 

 

To identify the body, the soldiers fetched the village elder who had been speaking to the officers that morning. But by tragic coincidence, the elder turned out to be the father of the slain boy. His moment of grief-stricken recognition, when he saw his son lying in a pool of blood, was later recounted in the flat prose of an official Army report. "The father was very upset," the report noted.

 

The father's grief did nothing to interrupt the pumped-up mood that had broken out among the soldiers. Following the routine Army procedure required after every battlefield death, they cut off the dead boy's clothes and stripped him naked to check for identifying tattoos. Next they scanned his iris and fingerprints, using a portable biometric scanner.

 

Then, in a break with protocol, the soldiers began taking photographs of themselves celebrating their kill. Holding a cigarette rakishly in one hand, Holmes posed for the camera with Mudin's bloody and half-naked corpse, grabbing the boy's head by the hair as if it were a trophy deer. Morlock made sure to get a similar memento.

 

 

 

 

"It was like another day at the office for him," one soldier recalls. Gibbs started "messing around with the kid," moving his arms and mouth and "acting like the kid was talking." Then, using a pair of razor-sharp medic's shears, he reportedly sliced off the dead boy's pinky finger and gave it to Holmes, as a trophy for killing his first Afghan.

 

According to his fellow soldiers, Holmes took to carrying the finger with him in a zip-lock bag. "He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out," one of his friends would later report. "He was proud of his finger."

 

 

 

 

]Emboldened, the platoon went on a shooting spree over the next four months that claimed the lives of at least three more innocent civilians. When the killings finally became public last summer, the Army moved aggressively to frame the incidents as the work of a "rogue unit" operating completely on its own, without the knowledge of its superiors.

 

 

 

"Most people within the unit disliked the Afghan people, whether it was the Afghan National Police, the Afghan National Army or locals," one soldier explained to investigators. "Everyone would say they're savages." One photo shows a hand missing a finger. Another depicts a severed head being maneuvered with a stick, and still more show bloody body parts, blown-apart legs, mutilated torsos. Several show dead Afghans, lying on the ground or on Stryker vehicles, with no weapons in view.

 

 

 

the Pentagon went to extraordinary measures to suppress the photos an effort that reached the highest levels of both governments. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and President Hamid Karzai were reportedly briefed on the photos as early as May, and the military launched a massive effort to find every file and pull the pictures out of circulation before they could touch off a scandal on the scale of Abu Ghraib.]By suppressing the photos, however, the Army may also have been trying to keep secret evidence that the killings of civilians went beyond a few men in 3rd Platoon. In one image, two dead Afghans have been tied together, their hands bound, and placed alongside a road. A sign handwritten on cardboard from a discarded box of rations hangs around their necks. It reads "Taliban are Dead."

 

The article follows with a lot more details, about how they beat up a soldier that wanted to come forward, their punishment (or lack thereof), and other details.

 

People often try to suppress this information because they believe that this will "embolden" the opposition. But we were supposed to have the moral high ground in fighting this battle. We were told we were better than the Taliban. Hell, President Obama yesterday talked about how terrible Gaddafi was in comparison to the liberators. All this does is make me wonder about the things the US was ABLE to suppress.

 

Another question that comes to mind, is what exactly makes people want to do this? Is it the nature of war? Or were these people just screwed up before (for lack of a better term)? I hope the armed forces don't foster or unexpectedly draw in people who wish to commit acts like this.

 

Overall it's a really complicated and sad situation. We are supposed to be "winning their hearts and minds" and I feel that this puts us two steps back.

 

Also, for those wondering about the tattoo in the article.

She also saw the large tattoo across Stoner's back. In gothic type, beneath a grinning red skull flanked by two grim reapers, it read:

 

WHAT IF IM NOT THE GOOD GUY

 

WHAT IF IM THE BAD GUY

 

I'm going through it now, won't be able to get through all of it tonight because of homework, but damn is it depressing. Also, a warning, there are lots of dead bodies so don't click if you can't handle that. Some excerpts from what I've read so far:

 

In a break with protocol, the soldiers also took photographs of themselves celebrating their kill. In the photos, Morlock grins and gives a thumbs-up sign as he poses with Mudins body. Note that the boys right pinky finger appears to have been severed. Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs reportedly used a pair of razor-sharp medics shears to cut off the finger, which he presented to Holmes as a trophy for killing his first Afghan.

 

Holmes poses with Mudins body. According to a fellow soldier, Holmes took to carrying Mudins severed finger with him in a zip-lock bag. He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out, one of his friends would later report. He was proud of his finger.

 

Taking fingers as trophies from killing someone. How can this be seen as anything but a serial killer?

A pistol found at the scene of the helicopter strike. Gibbs routinely collected such weapons and planted them on the bodies of unarmed civilians they killed, in order to frame their victim as enemy combatants. The presence of a drop weapon virtually guaranteed that a shooting would be considered a legitimate kill.

 

Another photo of Afghan children. According to one soldier, members of 3rd Platoon also talked about a scenario in which they would throw candy out in front and in the rear of the Stryker; the Stryker would then run the children over.

Link to full article

 

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327

 

 

Link to the pictures + accompanying dialogue (if you don't want to read a ton and want to know what they did, this is what you want to click)

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/the-kill-team-photos-20110327

[Giordano]

ITT:

 

Anti-American posts.

 

Blind American Patriotic posts.

[foursideking]

No real surprise here. You give a man a gun, and tell him that he has to protect his country, and he'll do anything even if it violates standards/laws. Truth be told, if american soldiers weren't so racist/prejudiced towards the middle-east, then we wouldn't have to worry about this happening.

[Range_This11]

No real surprise here. You give a man a gun, and tell him that he has to protect his country, and he'll do anything even if it violates standards/laws. Truth be told, if american soldiers weren't so racist/prejudiced towards the middle-east, then we wouldn't have to worry about this happening.

Although I typically do not side with the military--and I won't in regards to the RS article--I have to say that not all soldiers are prejudiced, but there is a good portion that give the rest a bad name.

[Cacmypants]

Looks like the first wave of [cabbage] has officially hit the fan.

[H2PM]

Same [cabbage] different day.

Every military in the world does this.

[Cacmypants]

Same [cabbage] different day.

Every military in the world does this.

 

This stuff shouldn't be happening at all regardless of context. The 'everyone does it, therefore it is OK' argument/assumption is a little bogus.

[H2PM]

But it is, and you know what? It's not going to stop.

Yeah. Terrible isn't it? This whole world is terrible.

[marcustullius]

So someone remind me again, why exactly is the US still the middle-east?

[Cacmypants]

So someone remind me again, why exactly is the US still the middle-east?

 

Because the government is full of paranoid control-freaks? Idk, it's pretty stupid.

[Dizzle229]

ITT:

 

Anti-American posts.

 

Blind American Patriotic posts.

[Cacmypants]

ITT:

 

Anti-American posts.

 

Blind American Patriotic posts.

 

I wouldn't say 'anti-American', you can't directly blame the American people as a whole for this. Also, I don't think anyone is patriotic enough to back these disgustingly evil actions. If they are.. I have zero respect for them.

[foursideking]

@cacmy: don't worry, everyone lost respect for bush/cheney a loooong time ago.

[dusky]

ITT:

 

Anti-American posts.

 

Blind American Patriotic posts.

 

I wouldn't say 'anti-American', you can't directly blame the American people as a whole for this. Also, I don't think anyone is patriotic enough to back these disgustingly evil actions. If they are.. I have zero respect for them.

 

Sadly enough, on the comment section of the original article, there were many so called 'patriots' condoning their actions.

[marcustullius]

ITT:

 

Anti-American posts.

 

Blind American Patriotic posts.

 

Thank you for your incredibly insightful post on this topic. It's appreciated.

[obfuscator]

Pathetic. Unfortunately, nothing new.

[marcustullius]

I don't see anything wrong. Looks like brave American soldiers defending our country to me.

 

SUPPORT ARE TROOPS!

 

 

Pathetic. Unfortunately, nothing new.

 

It's nothing new, but the more instances of this that are reported and are made into big stories the better.

[Range_This11]

But it is, and you know what? It's not going to stop.

Yeah. Terrible isn't it? This whole world is terrible.

I wholeheartedly disagree with you. This world is not terrible, but there are terrible people like the soldiers above. If we carry with us into war the mindset that these kinds of atrocities are "just going to happen" and should be swept under the rug, we invite a very disturbing style of warfare to return from the not-so-distant-past. Give these soldiers the fate their victims received, not a dishonorable discharge or any lesser punishment. I will admit, these things do happen, but if we pursue justice in a swift and unyielding manner, soldiers can get the message. We may not catch all war-criminals but at the same, we do not catch all of our domestic criminals either. Apathy has no place here.

[Lenticular_J]

No real surprise here. You give a man a gun, and tell him that he has to protect his country, and he'll do anything even if it violates standards/laws. Truth be told, if american soldiers weren't so racist/prejudiced towards the middle-east, then we wouldn't have to worry about this happening.

Although I typically do not side with the military--and I won't in regards to the RS article--I have to say that not all soldiers are prejudiced, but there is a good portion that give the rest a bad name.

Aye. The officers should be ashamed for not catching wind of these anti-civilian ideas sooner. Of course the enlisted men are at fault, but the officers should have had more control over their men.

 

Sometimes I'm disappointed with how American troops are kept when they're stationed overseas. A lot of stuff builds up, and many times lousy officers are at fault. They'll allow and even encourage hatred to build and build, then we have things like this. Those men better be court-marshaled. The whole platoon if necessary. The beginning was combat, and protocol wasn't followed completely, but I don't know enough to say anything truly wrong happened. The rest, though...

[marcustullius]

So guesses on when America will pull out of the middle-east? 5 years? 10 years? Never?

[The Dark Lord]

Once we liberate the Afghan people.

[marcustullius]

Once we liberate the Afghan people.

 

Your trolling skills are just pathetic. Seriously, I realize this is a runescape forum and all, but that's all you could come up with?

 

HOWEVER, I wanted an opportunity to post this and I guess now it's kind of relevant because of your pathetic troll attempt

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

 

Smedley Butler,

- By the end of his career he had received 16 medals, five of which were for heroism. He is one of 19 people to twice receive the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

- at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history

[sees_all1]

I question Rolling Stone's motive for publishing this right now. This story is nothing new, in fact here is a Time article on the exact same events from October 12th of LAST YEAR.

[The Dark Lord]

Your trolling skills are just pathetic. Seriously, I realize this is a runescape forum and all, but that's all you could come up with?

 

My posts were dripping with sarcasm, incase you couldn't tell.

[foursideking]

To be fair though, when most people think of rolling stones, they think of things that are old, messed-up, and scary when seen up close.