US Military Still Lying About Special Forces Night Raid in Afghanistan

[Echo In Light]

by Robert Naiman

U.S. officials are "probing a possible attempted coverup" in the deaths of five Afghan civilians in February in a raid carried out by U.S. Special Forces accompanied by Afghan troops, the Los Angeles Times reports. Among the charges is that the bodies were tampered with by U.S. forces to conceal the cause of death.

But even as the U.S. is supposedly investigating, U.S. officials say allegations that bullets were dug out of the bodies as part of a coverup are baseless, the LAT says.

Jerome Starkey had reported in the Times of London that Afghan investigators said U.S. Special Forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims' bodies. But U.S. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, General McChrystal's spokesman, said no forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony had been presented to support that account, the LAT says.

Admiral's Smith's statements appear to be a classic non-denial denial. Apparently no-one outside the U.S. military is in any position to provide any definitive "forensic" evidence, because Afghan investigators were not able to autopsy the bodies, as the New York Times reported, and because Afghan police were prevented by foreign forces from coming near the bodies, as the Los Angeles Times reported.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/11-1

[unhappycamper]

1. If a DoD spokesmen's mouths are still moving,

they are lying. Pure and simple.

[Echo In Light]

2. .

[Echo In Light]

3. .

[EFerrari]

4. K&R. That these troops would resort to this shows that their training

has not been adjusted to the new directive to avoid night raids and the resulting civilian casualties. Is that right?