The United States and NATO are concerned that reactions could be intense to the publication of images documenting killings committed by US soldiers in Afghanistan. The images appeared in the most recent edition of SPIEGEL, which hit the newsstands on Monday. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already telephoned with her Afghan counterpart to discuss the situation. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has likewise made contact with officials in Kabul. The case threatens to strain already fragile US-Afghan relations at a time when the two countries are negotiating over the establishment of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752310,00.html
Tagged: Kill Team Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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abunoor
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abunoor
Obama’s noble war in Afghanistan:
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.
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.
In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.
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Shams al-Nahar
Pardon Abu, but that is Bush’s War, like the whole Bush Doctrine/COIN meaningless unwinnable clusterfuckage in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Step off my man O.
Are you a spinmeister for the warpimps now?-
thabet
Didn’t Obama contrast the ‘wrong’ Iraq war with the ‘good’ war in Afghanistan? So yes, this makes it his war too.
He, or his administration, also continue to use Bush-era tactics to deny torture victims their day in court.
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Shams al-Nahar
only in the sense that we had an ACTUAL VALID REASON to go into Afghanistan, as contrasted with the nonsensical idea of proselytizing judeoxian democracy in Iraq.
Like the Econopalypse, Obama has been trying to extricate us from that clusterfuck since day one. Weren’t you watching the 2008 elections? Obama was FORCED to admit the Surge ‘worked’ or he would have never have been elected.
The trogs (republicans) are filibustering like 70% of his National Security appointments 18 months into his first term…..that is why we can’t get any traction on the ‘suicides’– officials reinvestigating themselves.
Obama is trying to pull a Lincoln and heal the nation…..like after the civil war.
And you and Abu and the firebaggers won’t cut him any slack.-
thabet
I have no need to cut him any slack. He’s not my president.
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shams
thass right!
getcher own damn change, limeyboi.
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Abu Noor
Shams,
The warpimp is your man Obama. He is the one who campaigned on a promise of escalating, who defended and celebrated, and who has kept his promise to escalate the war in Afghanistan. You are the one (among others) who professes love for this man…please don’t accuse me of what you and your hero are doing. Obama is a politician, he has no soul, but you are the one who defends him and asks for “slack” in his persecution of war, empire, and protection and reward of torturers.
Morality is not a team sport, Shams, I try call em like I see em regardless of which team they play for….and winning elections is no excuse. Ever. Obama is a grown man and he will take responsibility for what he says and what he does, if not now, then on the Day of Judgment. (as will we all)
Oh, and Eid Mubarak
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shams
Morality is not a team sport, but machiavellian pragmatism IS.
I thought you said you were a Lincoln fan?
And Eid Mubarak to you, my most contrary and beloved shayyk.
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thabet
You should write to Binyam Mohamad or Maher Arar, telling them they’re too stupid to understand Obama’s advanced intellectual chess game that needed to use them as pawns.
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shams
you don’t think O is doing what he can?
i do.
Bush did this, and Obama can’t just wave a magic wand and fix it.
He can’t even close gitmo. -
thabet
So when are you going to write to your brother Binyam who was tortured by the US and whom the Obama admin did its best to deny justice?
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shams
Could Lincoln deliver justice to generations of slaves or prosecute the confederate seccessionists for for treason?
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thabet
When you write to Binyam, you should tell him that too.
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Maitham and 
abunoor are discussing. 
thabet, 
Shams al-Nahar, and 
abunoor 4:53 pm on March 21, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Spiegel has published three of the photos. It says it has 4000 “images and videos”.
abunoor 4:59 pm on March 21, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.
The group’s leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.
Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man’s little fingers and removing a tooth.
The patrol team later claimed to their superiors that the mullah had tried to threaten them with a grenade and that they had no choice but to shoot.
abunoor 5:03 pm on March 21, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are “also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping”.
Maitham 6:54 pm on March 21, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
For the sake of fairness and honesty, it bears mentioning that these are pictures relating to one specific rogue squad which is being prosecuted by the American authorities and is expected to be severely punished by them. The photo collection obtained by Der Spiegel relates only to this one rogue squad, and does have reference to the activities of any other American or foreign soldiers who were not members of this squad.
The question of whether there could have been other “kill teams” that were not discovered is a separate issue.