Posted on 03/21/2011 6:32:48 AM PDT by driftdiver
Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.
Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.
They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.
Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Civilians my ass! If they have a weapon or support equipment, they are a combatant, no matter WHAT CLOTHES they are wearing!
FU UK Guardian.
YAWN! I dont really care...good for our guys, Im sure whomever they strung up and gutted, deserved it.
The UK Guardian is extremely left-wing and anti-American.
I’m concerned about our troops that are getting rail-roaded.
The facts are not out yet but it does look very dim for these guys. This whole thing came about because of their drug use. They were very into hash that they were getting in the villages. Even the groups I belong to regarding unjust prosecution of our troops is not touching this one.
There are e-mails and conversations that one of those accused had been trying to alert what was going on for 4 months through his parents, only to have his parents ignored by the Army. Either way this is bad and my son will be boots on the ground there when this hits. Der Speigel can publish all it wants but realize that most Afghans, especially in the outer villages cannot read so this will be relayed by word of mouth and will morph into something even more outrageous. Pray for those who will feel the repercussion of this.
In any large group of people there will be cases where bad stuff happens. I know our troops can do stupid stuff.
I object to these newspapers using it to hurt America and our troops in harms way.
There’s nothing we can do that would be worse than they do to each other.
If there ever was such a thing as a “defenseless Afghani civilian”, he died thousands of years ago, alone and childless.
I agree. I will tell you though what I have a huge problem with the military with though. The prescribing of the psycho-tropic drugs. And truthfully it is not only the military but everybody using these drugs as an easy fix. While the vast majority do not have the bad reactions, when they do occur it worse than what it started at.
the sad part is you’re right. such “kill team” activity ought be exploited . And our armed forces ought multiply such teams.
If the enemy sees these photographs and hears such a team is or might be deployed against them the team has the advantage
if the enemy is afraid of you he will be easier to defeat. IF the enemy is enraged—and hates you -he will make mistakes.
If the Americans were not led by anti-Military communist dupes—they would study War in the Shadows— and Sun Tsu, and consider the tactics used by the American natives we call Apache.
Perhaps just such a team ought be deployed against the UK Guardian -as an educational /training exercise?
I had forgotten this—seems old news-as you put it.
And if you are right about the “hash” this is no “team” any
reasonable warrior would be part of. The idea of the photo- op with an enemy removed -if the team has a rep in AO as a terror-then I have no problem with the staged art.
I’m guessing the NYTimes and other outlets will tout this as Obama’s fault, as Abu Ghraib was Bush’s.
“I’m guessing the NYTimes and other outlets will tout this as Obama’s fault, “
yeah I just bet they will
Drudge red headline: OBAMA GHRAIB
When Bush was president, it was a no-brainer for the NYT to run the Abu Ghraib story on the front page for something like 47 days in a row.
They'll love the anti-military angle, but they can't prevent it from harming Obama. What a quandry for them.
It will be interesting to see how the Obama Administration and their NY Times allies handle this.
Who exactly identified these corpses as “civilians”? Always consider the source.
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