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U.S.-trained Congolese troops committed rapes and other atrocities, U.N. says
Washington Post ^ | May 13, 2013 | Craig Whitlock

Posted on 05/16/2013 11:13:20 AM PDT by Pan_Yan

A Congolese army battalion that received its formative training from the U.S. military went on to commit mass rapes and other atrocities last year, a U.N. investigation has found.

Members of the 391st Commando Battalion, a unit created in 2010 with extensive support from the U.S. government, joined with other Congolese soldiers to rape 97 women and 33 girls as they fled a rebel advance in eastern Congo in November, according to the United Nations.

U.S. Special Operations forces had spent eight months training the 750-member battalion in a bid to professionalize Congo’s ragtag military, which has a long history of rights abuses, including raping and killing civilians. The training program, dubbed Operation Olympic Chase, was led by the State Department and the U.S. Africa Command, which oversees military operations on the continent.

...

In March 2012, a Malian army captain who had received extensive training in the United States led a coup that toppled his country’s democratically elected president. In the aftermath, France and neighboring African countries intervened militarily — with U.S. aid — to prevent Islamist fighters from taking over much of the country.

The Pentagon is ramping up its training in irregular warfare and counterterrorism with friendly countries as part of a broader strategy to combat extremist groups and stabilize war-torn regions. At any given time, U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed on training or liaison missions to as many as 80 countries.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhoafrica; congo; mali; specialops; ustroops
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Now this is the WaPo, meaning it is short on specifics and long on accusation but the general premise is worth discussing. I'd agree that we are arming and training people all over the world that we have no business arming and training. In the Congo we did a pretty good job aiding the countries who armed the rebels that we are paying the Congolese government and UN to fight.
1 posted on 05/16/2013 11:13:20 AM PDT by Pan_Yan
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To: Pan_Yan

Pretty sure we didn’t train anyone to rape and pillage.


2 posted on 05/16/2013 11:20:03 AM PDT by RC one
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To: Pan_Yan

Blame Obama


3 posted on 05/16/2013 11:20:26 AM PDT by Rapscallion (Obama abandoned the defenders in Benghazi - They died; he lied.)
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To: RC one

except for the kids coming out of the inner city public school systems of course.


4 posted on 05/16/2013 11:21:03 AM PDT by RC one
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To: RC one

IMHO, theUN has that backwards..


5 posted on 05/16/2013 11:21:47 AM PDT by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: Pan_Yan

A few months of training isn’t enough to reform an entire culture.

And it doesn’t make you responsible for all of the failings of a toxic culture.

You offer training for a specific purpose, and its usually because the people you are training are fighting someone even worse than they are. Or because it is one component of a long-term relationship that you hope over time will bear fruit.


6 posted on 05/16/2013 11:22:17 AM PDT by marron
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To: Pan_Yan

The US doesn’t train anyone to rape and steal. It was in there nature before.

Warning - it takes centuries to civilize savages.


7 posted on 05/16/2013 11:24:29 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Pi$$ed off yet?)
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To: Pan_Yan

These accusations are a racist attack on their culture.

/s


8 posted on 05/16/2013 11:27:31 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Obama-Ville - Land of The Freebies, Home of the Enslaved)
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To: marron

That continent’s not a culture; it’s a tribal, murderous hellhole, as the ME is. They never had it so good as when they were governed by Europeans under Colonialism. It should be cleared of the indigenous animals, neutron-nuked, and repopulated with humans and the animals.


9 posted on 05/16/2013 11:27:41 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (AR-10s & AR-15s are the Muskets of the 21st Century. Free men need not ask permission.)
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To: Pan_Yan

What in the world do the rapes and atrocities have to do with US Training and why are the two put together in this headline?!


10 posted on 05/16/2013 11:27:55 AM PDT by Castigar
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To: Pan_Yan

Because if you don’t rape the U.S. Army way, it’s second rate. /s


11 posted on 05/16/2013 11:29:30 AM PDT by Salvavida (The restoration of the U.S.A. starts with filling the pews at every Bible-believing church.)
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To: Pan_Yan

Let us stop training troops outside of the USA. Let the UN do it.


12 posted on 05/16/2013 11:33:00 AM PDT by Irenic (The pencil sharpener and Elmer's glue is put away-- we've lost the red wheel barrow)
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To: Pan_Yan

Is the U.N. concerned that they now have a rival to their own peacekeeping “force”?


13 posted on 05/16/2013 11:33:07 AM PDT by Common Sense 101 (Hey libs... If your theories fly in the face of reality, it's not reality that's wrong.)
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To: Pan_Yan

Actually, I’d prefer the Chinese, Russians, and Al Qaeda weren’t there doing the training, but to each their own.


14 posted on 05/16/2013 11:33:10 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Before it's all over, Obama may demand extradition to Kenya, becasue he was born there...)
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To: RC one

Of course we didn’t.

This is like saying someone’s high school teacher is responsible if one of their students goes out and commits rape. And truth be told, the perps in this instance may have been about the same age.

This report is pathetic.


15 posted on 05/16/2013 11:34:11 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Before it's all over, Obama may demand extradition to Kenya, becasue he was born there...)
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To: carriage_hill

Actually overall things are getting better in Africa, economies are developing, poverty is being reduced, AIDS under control.


16 posted on 05/16/2013 11:35:01 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Pan_Yan

Training them obviously didn’t civilize them.


17 posted on 05/16/2013 11:35:13 AM PDT by Forty-Niner (A Strong Man Armed who guards his home, lives in peace.)
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To: RC one

if we did it was under the KLINTON administration. so ship them some ice.


18 posted on 05/16/2013 11:35:16 AM PDT by longfellow (Bill Maher, the 21st hijacker.)
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To: Pan_Yan

Outlaw the US...

When Criminals have the US only the innocents suffer.../s


19 posted on 05/16/2013 11:37:05 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)
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To: sheik yerbouty

soldiers have been raping and pillaging for thousands of years. Professional military organizations, such as the US Military, have laws against it and will throw you in prison if you are caught doing it. Less civilized, less professional military forces, on the other hand, tend not to go to such lengths to prevent raping and pillaging. Our advisers do not teach their trainees how to rape. That’s something that they learned on their own.


20 posted on 05/16/2013 11:39:44 AM PDT by RC one
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