U.S. Army Apologizes for "Repugnant" Afghan Photos

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

U.S. Army apologizes for "repugnant" Afghan photos
BERLIN | Mon Mar 21, 2011 5:15pm EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Der Spiegel magazine published photos on Monday of American soldiers posed over the bloodied corpse of an Afghan civilian whose slaying it said is being prosecuted by the U.S. military as premeditated murder.

Disclosure of the images, among dozens seized as evidence in the prosecutions but kept sealed from public view by the military, prompted the U.S. Army to issue an apology "for the distress these photos cause" and condemning actions depicted in them as "repugnant."

One photo shows a soldier identified as Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, of Wasilla, Alaska, broadly smiling in sunglasses as he crouches beside the bloodied, prone body of a man whose head he is holding up for the camera by the hair.

- snip -

Morlock and Holmes are among five Stryker Brigade soldiers facing court-martial at Joint Base Lewis McChord near Tacoma, Washington, on charges of premeditated murder stemming from the deaths of three Afghan villagers whose killings were allegedly staged to look like legitimate combat casualties.

Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72K6TL20110321?WT.tsrc=Social%20Media&ca=rdt

[DCKit]

1. Who else do we know from Wasilla, AK?

They've really got the family values going on up there.

[Hissyspit]

7. I made sure to include that paragraph. nt

[sabrina 1]

2. This story is much, much worse than what I am reading

in the excerpted quotes, I haven't read the full article yet so maybe they do cover the horrific crimes committed by this 'Kill Unit'.

They didn't just take photos, they killed civilians, then mutilated their bodies for trophies, sorry, I'm having a problem even typing this.

These were atrocities committed against civilians in Afghanistan and they are facing the death penalty for what they did.

The military did not want the photos to get out as they are afraid, I wonder why, of the reaction of the people of Afghanistan when they see them.

We need to get OUT of there. This incident we know about, how many others have they covered up?

And we are going to Libya to 'save the civilians' from a brutal regime! I'd say let's start cleaning up our brutal machine. The Pakistanis, the Iraqis and the Afghans have been begging for justice for years, because of this kind of brutality.

[pacalo]

3. +1. I'm reminded of the movie "In the Valley of Elah", particularly the scene at the end

when Tommy Lee Jones' character raised the American flag in an upside-down position. This country is indeed in distress.

[sabrina 1]

5. I haven't seen that movie but yes, we are in deep distress.

When we have stooped to the level of arguing over what might or might not be torture in order to protect politicians, I wonder if there is any hope at all.

[pacalo]

23. I never thought I'd see a debate on torture on DU, either.

Please rent the movie -- it's about a no-nonsense ex-Marine father who still maintains his military habits in his old age. He goes to the courthouse every morning to raise the American flag.

The movie centers around his son's disappearance at a Marine base. The father travels to the base to get answers & to help in finding his son. Information is not forthcoming from military sources, but he manages to get help from a detective outside military jurisdiction, although she isn't as skeptical as the father until she gets to know how much of a stickler he is for details & they begin to investigate the scene of his son's murder within the boundaries of the base.

The answers for the murder come at the end. The transformation of Tommy Lee Jones' gung-ho Marine & American patriotistic attitude to horrorifying realization that this country's moral compass has deteriorated to the danger point is completed when the last scene shows him at the courthouse.

I recommend this movie very highly.

[sabrina 1]

4. US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians

US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians

Commanders brace for backlash of anti-US sentiment that could be more damaging than after the Abu Ghraib scandal

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.

This what war does and undisciplined troops who have been taught that the rightful occupants of the land they have invaded, are not human.

I hope Libya gets its wish and no foreign troops land on their soil.

[jwirr]

6. Apologize for the photos? Hell apologize for the soldier actions period. nt

[tavalon]

11. How is this different from Abu Ghraib?

We rightly didn't buy the "few bad apples" theory then and correctly blamed the war crimes on the Bush administration. This is the same systemic ignoring of the Geneva conventions that we got under the last administration.

We still haven't tried the Bush people for their war crimes and now we have a whole new administration that needs prosecution. And I helped vote this team in.

[tavalon]

28. Anyone?

I really want to know why this is being handled by DU in what appears to be a hypocritical way.

[tavalon]

30. And again, I ask. What is the difference between this and Abu Ghraib?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

39. Well, for one ...

"...five Stryker Brigade soldiers facing court-martial at Joint Base Lewis McChord near Tacoma, Washington, on charges of premeditated murder..."

Another difference (I hope) is that Abu Ghraib treatment was authorized and encouraged by high-level CIA intelligence officers, or so the story goes. These killings were (again, hopefully) limited in authorization to the on-site leadership and not to higher-ups at some headquarters level. In other words, and authorized clusterfuck vs a rogue clusterfuck.

:hi:

[tavalon]

40. You know this for sure?

So, the buck stops at the top with a Republican administration but it stops a lot lower with a Democratic administration?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

41. No. That's why all the "hopey" words

I'd guess we'll hear more as the investigations and courts-martial proceed.

At this point, I can only "hope" that the approvals stop at some sargeant or lieutenant, and not roll down from the command structure.

I also "hope" that the furor will accelerate our exit from that region. We're not winning, even if we knew what "winning" means.

[jbnow]

14. They are prosecuting the soldiers over the killings, that is even

better than an apology
But nothing makes these people less dead

I hope they blurred over the at least the faces of the dead. It would just be all the more painful for loved ones not just to see themselves but to know strangers all over could see

[tavalon]

37. And begin War Crimes prosecutions for the people in charge

While we're at it, let's also indict the group that was in charge during the Abu Ghraib war crimes. Either Bush is a war criminal and now Obama is too, or neither are.

[plumbob]

48. Yes, I'm tired of non-apologies as well.

My tax dollars paid for these actions, and I'm sick of it.

[NorthCarolina]

8. But, but, but, we're there on a humanitarian mission!

Surely this somehow qualifies as humanitarian aid. The circle-D's on DU can probably find a way to justify this for us. Probably already working out those details, complete with links, as we speak.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. here are the photos ...one bastard is from Wasilla Alaska

shades of Abu Ghraib....WTF is wrong with some of our soldiers.....when will they ever learn?

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, grinning as he lifts the head of a corpse by the hair. Der Spiegel identified the body as that of Gul Mudin, whom Morlock was charged with killing on Jan. 15, 2010, in Kandahar Province.

this dead boy I read somewhere is 15 yrs old



Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho, holding the head of the same corpse



the one in orange t shirt looks to be about 12/13 yrs old

[sabrina 1]

15. There are thousands of photos. Apparently it was an obsession.

I had not seen them but they didn't just photograph them, they killed people and treated them 'prey'.

Ugly, horrific, and it's not an isolated incident. The people of all of our occupied countries do NOT want us there.

We never saw the Abu Ghraib photos either that Cheney hid away. Lindsey Graham turned white after viewing them and for once stood up to Cheney telling him 'we are talking about murder here, and rape, let us do our job, Mr. VP.' I held out some hope for him when he said that that day, but I guess they put him back in his place.

And now, we are off to another glorious and noble foreign adventure!

Edited to say, I just read your comment that the victim was just 15 years old! They are monsters. Who raised these people?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

17. I am so sick to my stomach of all this war crap....and now Libya....President Obama you were suppose

to STOP THIS SHIT.......WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ANOTHER COUNTRY?!?!

[sabrina 1]

21. You and me both, and the sad thing is that

people are becoming immune to these atrocities, excusing them even as 'part of war'. Well, if they are part of war, how come there people like Bradley Manning who tried to stop atrocities? War did not make him become this kind of monster. Although I bet these monsters are getting better treatment in the brig than he is getting.

It is sickening, stomach turning and we just can't seem to get enough of it.

[yardwork]

33. Very good point. Are these murderers being torture by special forces in Quantico?

I doubt it very much.

[sabrina 1]

42. I doubt it. But we know one thing, there was not much coverage

of these atrocities until a foreign news media published the photos. So they were not exposed to the same kind of negative publicity Manning has been.

[Lars77]

25. How can you even compare Libya to this shit? nt

[NeoConsSuck]

26. OK, answer this

has there been *any* war in the last 40 years where this shit hasn't been committed by American soldiers?? Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

[Lars77]

44. There are no US (or other foreign troops) on the ground in Libya

Just like there werent any in the Kosovo intervention either.


Reason being that there were never troops on the ground, because Kosovo was not an invasion. And neither is this. Its about stopping Ghadaffy from murdering unarmed people with aircraft, AA guns, artillery and tanks like he has been doing for weeks now.

[yardwork]

32. Dropping bombs on children and women vs. torturing and murdering children and women....

gee, I can't see any comparison. /sarcasm

[Lars77]

45. So you mean the one time that any people in the arab world..

are actually begging for assistance from the west, we are supposed to tell them no, because we´re so fed up with all the unjust wars we´ve been waging?

Ghadaffy has already murdered thousands of innocent people, and he will keep doing it. Am i supposed to feel sorry for the tank crews and pilots that has been shelling Benghazi and other cities for weeks now?
How about the Shilka AA gun crews who´s been painting streets red with blood and body parts when they turned their Shilkas on unarmed people?

The Libyan military has been slaughtering civillians for weeks, and it has to stop.

[yardwork]

46. I don't believe this propaganda.

[Lars77]

47. Then you need to stop watching RT,

and start searching for all the twitter threads Catherina made when this shit was starting. People were filming african mercenaries in the streets in brand new jeeps going door to door killing people and posting it on line. As the rebels progressed they also found army barracks at abandoned military bases where Ghadaffys people had burned soldiers alive for refusing to fire on unarmed people.

And what about the two Mirage jets who landed in malta, their pilots asking for political asylum because they refused to bomb unarmed protesters?


I aggree completely that there is a lot of propaganda and shit going on, and i certainly dont trust the west in doing anything right, but even if this is about the oil the goal is the same as the rebels goal. Take out his military and kill his mercenary units, so that they can rise up again. Two weeks ago they controlled the whole country except tripoli, then he struck back with his reign of terror and people went back into hiding.

[yardwork]

50. I don't know what RT is. Are we also going to attack Saudi Arabia

and other countries where terrible dictators are murdering and torturing people?

North Korea? Sudan?

[Lars77]

53. Just because we arent, are you saying we shouldt do anything about this?

First of all, its not just the US here. A lot of other countries are involved.
Second, this is the organized mass murder of people by regular army units, paramilitaries AND mercenaries.

But I imagine you were outraged when the world finally stopped the genocide in Kosovo by the Serbs too, then.

Or are you just trying to make me look like a hypocrite because you cant come up with a better argument?

[plumbob]

51. So why now? Qaddafi has been in power for 42 years, helped blow

up the airliner in the Lockerbie deaths, and became our BFF in 2003, but NOW we must do something?

What is different NOW than from 1969 to now?

And yeah, killing civilians and kids from the air rather than on the ground is still murder, not war.

[Lars77]

52. Well the difference is torture and oppression has changed into full-blown genocide. nt

[Boudica the Lyoness]

18. oh fuck

these bastards need to be locked up for the rest of their lives. These dead boys could be my sons! I feel so sad for their mothers. And as far as the killers mothers go, they should be ashamed and even punished for raising such evil children. Maybe the killers had a self centred, rotten mother like Sara Palin, who taught them how to kill at a young age and then thought her job was done.

[yardwork]

31. U.S. troops tortured and murdered children.

[rocktivity]

10. Apologizing that the photos were taken

or that they were ABLE to be taken?

And whose "distress" are they apologizing for -- the victim's survivors, the public, of their own?

:eyes:
rocktivity

[tavalon]

12. The Rumsfeld war crimes Doctrine rears its ugly head again

It isn't that it happened that is wrong, it's that we took pictures of it that's wrong.

[Ramulux]

13. This is on Obama

This is his fucking war and those deaths should be on his conscience. As if he cared.

[IamK]

20. +1000

[yardwork]

34. It's on us. Every single one of us. What are we going to do about it?

[louis-t]

16. Our soldiers being prosecuted for the same thing

Blackwater got away with. All charges dropped, as I recall.

[DeadEyeDyck]

19. I fear another 911 or far worse/

The humiliation suffer on these people will require retribution. Killing an enemy in combat is one thing but killing a mullah and using his body parts for throphies is quite another.

We have some very dark days ahead.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

22. I feel your fears too

[Evoman]

24. Why are people EVER fucking surprised about shit like this?!

This is going on every fucking day, in every fucking war. It's happened in every war in the history of mankind, and will keep happening until we stop with tribal and nationalist bullshit and learn to coexist.

You will NEVER be able to send a group of men into another country to kill people and not get rape, murder torture and atrocities. I don't give a shit how well you think of your countrymen, or how good they are, put them in a war and watch them turn into debased shadows of the people you knew.

Those men in those pictures....keep them at home and make them accountants or teachers, and they would probably suprise you with how great they can be average citizens. And that's the point...we just need to stop the fucking fighting.

[wickerwoman]

29. I don't know...

A certain percentage of the population are just stone-cold sociopaths. And if you're the kind of person who thinks raping, murdering and stealing is fun (and about 1% of the population does) then the army would have to look like a pretty sweet career move- assuming you were too stupid to get into Harvard Business School.

I agree people shouldn't be surprised that atrocities happen in every war, and that sometime the stress of combat can lead otherwise normal people to do things they would never do in ordinary circumstances... but at the same time, we shouldn't assume that Morlock and Holmes would have been fine, upstanding young accountants if they had never seen a battlefield either. I trust the army's psychological screening process, particularly with three wars going on, about as much as I trust anything the army says or does.

[yardwork]

35. This has been clear to me since I was a little kid and saw the pictures of My Lai.

Why is this so difficult for people to understand? All over DU I see glorification of war.

[Nossida]

27. Ho hum.

So the Army apologizes for the pictures,
but not the behavior?

Go to Dare Speigel Mein Herr.

They show the least 3 offensive shots no doubt.
Hold the people that sent the Soldiers responsible, or forget it.

[tavalon]

36. We certainly understood that under the Bush Administration, didn't we?

Somehow, in a way I am unable to see, this is different. This really is about "a few bad apples" and not about war crimes committed under the current administration. I am baffled by the way DU wholeheartedly blames the soldiers in this situation but were able to see the culpability at the top even if we could do nothing about it.

My brain isn't wired that way. I cannot see any difference between this and what happened at Abu Ghraib.

Oh, wait, there is one difference. I didn't vote for the first set of war criminals but I did vote for the second set.

[tavalon]

38. Ya gotta love that Rumsfeld Doctrine

Apologize for the photos not the war crimes.

[marasinghe]

43. yea. 'apologies' are the new 'court martial, sentencing & penalty phases of the UCMJ'.

21st century legal equity.

[Octafish]

49. Well. That's that! (warning: picture may not be suitable for all)

Time to look ahead.