In honour of “Veterans Day”, I felt that it was necessary to shine a light on all the good U.S./Nato have done, and continue to do, in Afghanistan. I wanted to recognise all those “soldiers” who have, in the past 11 years, exported peace into Afghanistan. I wanted to demonstrate my utmost appreciation to those who have transformed Afghanistan into the prosperous, peaceful, beacon of democracy it is today.
I wanted to recognise Bagram Prison, which has, since its inception, upheld human rights to an admirable degree. Truly, their torture techniques and prisoner detainee methods have successfully reformed and rehabilitated countless suspected militants.
I wanted to recognise the “Kill Team”; Andrew Holmes, Michael Wagnon, Jeremy Morlock and Adam Winfield, whose murder of civilians and subsequent documentation of their murderous endeavours and collection of human paraphernalia, was, no doubt, for the greater good of Afghanistan. I can say, without hesitation, that the murder of fifteen year old Gul Mudin truly won over the “Hearts and minds” of Afghans. Well done!
I wanted to recognise David Passaro, whose assault of civilian Abdul Wali lead to his death and subsequently removed one more militant from Afghanistan, greatly assisting in the war effort.
I wanted to recognise all the massacres committed by Nato, among them the Nangar Khel massacre of six civilians, including three children and a pregnant woman, by the Polish Army.
Lastly, I wanted to recognise Robert Bales, the ‘soldier’ responsible for the massacre of 17 civilians in Kandahar, including 9 children. Bales, the motherfucking coward that he is, first murdered then burned the bodies of his victims and has yet to be charged for his crimes despite the fact that over 8 months have passed since the incident.
These are just a few of the hundreds, if not thousands, of crimes committed by U.S/Nato personnel in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to recognise them all given the nature of impunity that characterises Nato efforts in Afghanistan.
Pay attention, you fucking fist full of assholes. If you’re going to remember ‘soldiers’, remember them all, including the countless murderers among their ranks. If you’re going to praise the ‘brave efforts’ of Nato armies, don’t forget to condemn their violations of human rights. If you’re going to recognise the ‘heroes’, recognise the thousands of cowards as well.
Now, get the fuck out of Afghanistan and the “Afghanistan” tag, you hypocritical pieces of shit.
I don’t even want to have their ugly mugs on my blog but I have to reblog this and bear with it. My hatred for the US government and it’s military knows no bound.
Why I refused to return to fight in Afghanistan's brutal occupation | Joe Glenton
At the same time as the Taliban attacks there has been a rise in atrocities. We have recently seen British soldiers convicted for raping children, as well as the stabbing by a squaddie of a 10-year-old Afghan boy. A multinational operation in all respects, the US has done its share; kill teams, SS flag-waving, photographing bodies, urinating on corpses and the Panjwai massacre carried out, according to the witnesses, by 15 to 20 US troops. When young men are shaped for war and sent to fight there are consequences – even in “just” wars. The training involves two-way dehumanisation – both of our soldiers and of the enemy – as Giles Fraser highlighted lately. These acts are coming thick and fast at the end of a long, dehumanising, failed war. Conscientious objection was a hard road for me, but while I was in military prison I received 200 letters a day, which helped. As did the support of my fellow soldiers.
![AN EXCERPT FROM AN ESSAY I’M WRITING:
Gul Mudin lay face down in the dust, his blood seeping into the roots of young poppy saplings. The cap that had sat atop his thick, curly brown hair only moments before now lay a few inches away, covered in specks of brain matter. The village elder of La Mohammad Kalay who had been speaking with the American soldiers earlier in the day was now fast approaching, summoned by the loud grenade explosion and a cacophony of gunfire. Reaching the body, the old man let out a gut wrenching cry of anguish.
The small, crumpled body on the ground was his son. He was only fifteen.
Another elder reaches the scene, shouting in fast, angry Pashto. The man was working in the field when it happened and he saw everything. He gestured to two of the infantrymen, Corporal Jeremy Morlock and Private First Class Andrew Holmes, “murderers!” Pointing an accusing finger first at Morlock—“It was him who threw the grenade”—and next Holmes—“this one shot Gul,” the farmer fearlessly told the truth.” Captain Patrick Mitchell, Sergeant Kris Sprague, and the rest of the Americans ignored him. Nobody openly questioned Morlock or Holmes, even if it was odd that a lone Taliban fighter would launch a grenade at them in broad daylight.
Despite the presence of Gul’s inconsolable father, the soldiers stripped his body naked right where he lay. They checked for any distinctive markings or identifying tattoos, then they scanned his irises and fingerprints for their database. Once the standard procedure for processing a casualty was finished, the soldiers next preformed what was to become a much-enjoyed ritual, though it certainly deviated from sanctioned Army 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 as if it were a trophy deer. Morlock made sure to get a similar memento.
No one seemed more pleased by the kill than Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, the platoon’s popular and hard-charging squad leader…Using a pair of razor-sharp medic’s shear’s, [Gibbs] sliced off the dead boy’s pinky finger and gave it to Holmes, as a trophy for killing his first Afghan.
—The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians [Rolling Stone]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvxcb632xa1qi5mg3o1_1280.jpg)
AN EXCERPT FROM AN ESSAY I’M WRITING:
Gul Mudin lay face down in the dust, his blood seeping into the roots of young poppy saplings. The cap that had sat atop his thick, curly brown hair only moments before now lay a few inches away, covered in specks of brain matter. The village elder of La Mohammad Kalay who had been speaking with the American soldiers earlier in the day was now fast approaching, summoned by the loud grenade explosion and a cacophony of gunfire. Reaching the body, the old man let out a gut wrenching cry of anguish.
The small, crumpled body on the ground was his son. He was only fifteen.
Another elder reaches the scene, shouting in fast, angry Pashto. The man was working in the field when it happened and he saw everything. He gestured to two of the infantrymen, Corporal Jeremy Morlock and Private First Class Andrew Holmes, “murderers!” Pointing an accusing finger first at Morlock—“It was him who threw the grenade”—and next Holmes—“this one shot Gul,” the farmer fearlessly told the truth.” Captain Patrick Mitchell, Sergeant Kris Sprague, and the rest of the Americans ignored him. Nobody openly questioned Morlock or Holmes, even if it was odd that a lone Taliban fighter would launch a grenade at them in broad daylight.
Despite the presence of Gul’s inconsolable father, the soldiers stripped his body naked right where he lay. They checked for any distinctive markings or identifying tattoos, then they scanned his irises and fingerprints for their database. Once the standard procedure for processing a casualty was finished, the soldiers next preformed what was to become a much-enjoyed ritual, though it certainly deviated from sanctioned Army 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 as if it were a trophy deer. Morlock made sure to get a similar memento.
No one seemed more pleased by the kill than Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, the platoon’s popular and hard-charging squad leader…Using a pair of razor-sharp medic’s shear’s, [Gibbs] sliced off the dead boy’s pinky finger and gave it to Holmes, as a trophy for killing his first Afghan.
—The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians [Rolling Stone]
(via darkjez)
The Kill Team Photos: More war crime images the Pentagon doesn’t want you to see (click on picture warning for a pretty gruesome gallery)
During the first five months of last year, a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan went on a shooting spree, killing at least four unarmed civilians and mutilating several of the corpses. The “kill team” – members of the 5th Stryker Brigade stationed near Kandahar – took scores of photos chronicling their kills and their time in Afghanistan. Even before the war crimes became public, the Pentagon went to extraordinary measures to suppress the photos, launching 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.
The images – more than 150 of which have been obtained by Rolling Stone – portray a front-line culture among U.S. troops in which killing innocent civilians is seen as a cause for celebration. “Most people within the unit disliked the Afghan people,” one of the soldiers told Army investigators. “Everyone would say they’re savages.”
Many of the photos depict explicit images of violent deaths that have yet to be identified by the Pentagon. Among the soldiers, the collection was treated like a war memento. It was passed from man to man on thumb drives and hard drives, the gruesome images of corpses and war atrocities filed alongside clips of TV shows, UFC fights and films such as Iron Man 2. One soldier kept a complete set, which he made available to anyone who asked. (via Rolling Stone)
Part 2
I was going to upload some of the Kill Team photos myself but its contained within this report from Democracy Now. Plus I thought it much better to hear the words from this young woman who has to live with what is being done in our name.
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