WikiLeaks war logs: British forces exposed over Afghan attacks

WikiLeaks war logs: British forces exposed over Afghan attacks

www.guardian.co.uk

The conduct of three British military units in Afghanistan has come under serious question after the Ministry of Defence released unprecedented details of incidents in which troops attacked Afghan civilians.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I don't like posting stuff like this but unfortunately we were involved in starting these wars so we have to deal with the consequences of what happens in them.

"Releasing information about 21 incidents, the MoD revealed that the Coldstream Guards shot four civilians in Kabul over a period of three weeks; the Royal Marine commandos killed or wounded civilians eight times in six months; and the third unit, the Rifles, were involved in three incidents last year.

Among the casualties were children, and on one occasion a man with mental health problems."

Now, I know this is very bad, and clearly will put a dent in the reputation of the British army, but I'm not one of those that think we should get out of the country immediately. We need to solve the problem now, and if we can't then I think we should probably pull the majority of the armed forces out.

What I do think is that people like this NEED to be brought to justice, whether it affects the moral of the soldiers or not! And public trials too. Because what is the alternative, you let them get away with it, and not only that, but you allow them back in to our society, I don't really need to explain the stupidity of that do I?

Also the private security firms need to get the hell out of those countrys, and these parts of the army quite frankly need to behave better and if they can't, they should not be in the army because they are just causing problems.

"On 19 November 2008 they shot dead a child in a white Toyota which they believed was driving towards them. "There had been a report of a suicide bomber in the area," said the MoD."

There is more in the article, but I'll let you go over that yourselves.

But I do want to add the following, its from the comments section on the website:

"As an ex marine I'm saddened by the incidents reported but not surprised.
Armed forces are habitually recruited from the lower strata of society mainly disaffected men with little or no social responsibility, trained in a bullying and aggressive manner to be disconnected from and supercilious of those they are reputedly trying to protect.
Racism, homophobia, mysogeny and gang ethics are the working creed of the Marines and those of us who tried to reject by treating the civilian population with respect and trust this were treated to physical and mental abuse, accused of letting the side down and left because the scary fact became: the enemy was the man next to you - and if someone in their own group is considered 'wrong' how when given weapons and no cultural, social training are they going to react when confronted by virtual aliens."

Other soldiers in the comments agreed.

I'm not even hating on the army, but I can't stand back and not post this stuff, although I doubt it will do anything.



www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well done Wikileaks and Manning for getting this information out to us. Well done the Guardian for the FOI request and the article.

Information such as this HAS to be put in the public domain, because once in the public domain we the public start to get back some of our rightful control over what our Government and troops do.

Secrecy supports criminality.

It's good to seek to change a violent culture to a degree, but these types of events are not restricted to ANY one group, not to Americans, not to the British, not to the Insurgents. They are also not restricted to the modern era and nothing we see today is anything new.

The reality is, war has become less lethal and destructive. We just see more of it now. It is no longer far away and painted by patriots to the exclusion of dissenting views.

War is, by it's nature, extremely violent and chaotic. As long as humans find a need to struggle physically with each other, these tragedies will continue to occur.

A professional soldier is not a politician, not a psychologist and not a carpenter. He is a killer. If he isn't pulling the trigger he's performing some duty that enables those that do. That's the purpose of an army. To take the nations will from a point of negotiation to the point of physical force.

If you were the guy that had been shot at by a 14 year old kid last week, or witnessed a woman blow herself up to kill your friend or watched a Pepsi can cut your Sargent in half, you might be scared enough to shoot first and ask questions later too.

These guys are in hell, we should never again condone the killing of civilians but it's hard to blame a guy for freaking out too.

We also have to keep in mind that these guys and gals are not the ones that initiated the conflict, they are just the poor souls that are ordered to carry it out. Some of them will crack under the immense pressure.

Just a few weeks ago, in fact, I had a Marine try to pick a fight with me outside of a local store. All I did was glance at him and he felt threatened or insulted or whatever. I served in the Army and I can recognize a soldier and my thought was actually to say hello and offer some respect.. After a little chest thumping I realized he was a little out of it, if you get my drift. I asked him if he had just returned from the Box and he snapped out of it.

He apologized and we shared a smoke and a pat on the back.

It's messed up what can happen when a human being walks into hell on Earth. They come out the other side affected.