Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies...Soldiers have collected war trophies from the battlefield since time immemorial, but typically from enemy combatants, not from civilians.
Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians...
The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies...
The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.
Army Times stories here (6/17) and here (8/27).
"Soldiers have collected war trophies from the battlefield since time immemorial, but typically from enemy combatants, not from civilians."
ReplyDeleteOh? Is that so?
Our enemies aren't soldiers. Our enemies are civilians. Some days they are farming, some days they are shooting. They don't wear uniforms, they aren't recognized as soldiers as defined by the treaty of Westphalia. This is different, comparisons of war trophies should be considered as such.
ReplyDelete^Um, I think you're missing the point here.
ReplyDeleteYou're not supposed to murder innocent people.
the soldiers probably consider every civilian there as the enemy. this incident is not a surprise. I expect more n more gruesome things will be uncovered in the future.
ReplyDelete