US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as tro

[Bounce]

No, I think Mecky was pointing out the habit by certain posters to only condemn atrocities committed by *the other side*, but stay silent or actually even defend actions committed by those they identify with. There's a lot of it about on all fronts.

 

The OP has openly endorsed Islamist propaganda on SF before, like many of his cohorts he doesn't seem to have a problem with Taliban behaviour and has been openly bigoted against the West. The actions of the soldiers are despicable, as are so many elements of the shameful Bush and Blair legacy, but when condemnation comes from quarters who have endorsed theocratic dictatorship I think it's safe to say the sentiment doesn't stem from a humanitarian impulse but a politically partisan one.

 

Some say the Taliban are tribal people who are simply fighting the American lead NATO occupation, others say they are terrorists. If we look at history we see that the very same USA was supporting and arming Osama Binladen and the Taliban to fight the Russians. In the American movie Rambo 3 the Taliban are portrayed as heroes. Before the American lead invasion of Afghanistan the tribal areas of Pakistan were a peaceful place. I think it's important we use our brain and think for a minute before labelling people as violent or terrorists and actually look at who is invading who's countries and the imperialist motivations behind it. Doing this does not make one anti western it makes one intelligent.

[Darth Vader]

I could tell you but then id have to kill you.

 

What with? A tat gun?

 

 

I must say, I'm shocked that we haven't had the usual suspects telling us this report must be untrue, as hashish just makes you chilled and want to love everyone, and it's impossible for you to even consider harming a fly if you've ever smoked the stuff.

[Harleyman]

Then pay your chavs a reasonable amount and they won't join up and bring US forces into disrepute...a small price to pay wouldn't you say? Harley, I'm surprised at you somehow tenuously linking the alleged atrocities with the chav on the street in the UK:shocked:..I mean it really is scraping the chuffin barrel.

 

US servicemen are trained by professionals, that doesn't mean whoever they are training turn out professional...some just want to get through the thick of it and get into action, and most that do, do it honourably..but there's always the idiots who squeeze through and cause a lot of damage...mostly to their own. What we in the West have done here (both sides) is actually mirrored the psychos that lop heads off. Most probably they do it because they hate us with a vengeance...but to do it just for the sport of it is very worrying. If any semblance of attained high ground was taken..then we just lost it IMO. You don't win wars by trophy hunting for the sake of trophy hunting.

 

Anyone arguing that "well it's just war and that's how it goes" is talking b******* and actually insults the vast majority of servicemen. If they did what they did they should be locked up for a VERY long time..if not for those they murdered, but those they'll go home to because as night follows day these soulless waste of space have a taste.

 

Btw...I read the op without even considering the US. For me this is not about the US..it's about soldiers..even if the op is seen to have an agenda.

 

 

I agree with you and those soldiers will get locked up for a long time without a doubt.

If anyone is still under the notion that hearts and minds can be won in Afganistan then they're living in a dream world. All these soldiers did is add their little bit of ****e to an already sh*tty situation.

George Bush and his fellow draft dodgers Cheney and Rumsfeld landed us in this and the repeated rotations of personnel to Afghanistan and Iraq are seriously undermining the integrity of the US military organisation. When this happens then there is bound to be breakdowns in discipline and morale.

I dont think our leaders are being honest and telling us how it is in this respect. Certainly it's a well know fact that suicides amongst military personnel are at an all time high and of great concern to the pentagon.

 

I remember how the military was just at the end of the Vietnam war and it could well end up the same state if this war drags on for years to come.

There was the case of one soldier, a US army Ranger who has been deployed to either Iraq or Afganistan no less than 12 times and many others numerous times also.

There's something going wrong somewhere

[Harleyman]

Some say the Taliban are tribal people who are simply fighting the American lead NATO occupation, others say they are terrorists. If we look at history we see that the very same USA was supporting and arming Osama Binladen and the Taliban to fight the Russians. In the American movie Rambo 3 the Taliban are portrayed as heroes. Before the American lead invasion of Afghanistan the tribal areas of Pakistan were a peaceful place. I think it's important we use our brain and think for a minute before labelling people as violent or terrorists and actually look at who is invading who's countries and the imperialist motivations behind it. Doing this does not make one anti western it makes one intelligent.

 

Todays allies are tomorrows enemies and vice versa. What's new about that?

France and Britain were enemies for centuries and the Germans our allies then it all changed with WW1. Likewise our Russian allies and Japanese enemies in WW2 and look what happened when that war ended.

 

It's deja vu all over again to quote Yogi Berra

[purdyamos]

Some say the Taliban are tribal people who are simply fighting the American lead NATO occupation, others say they are terrorists. If we look at history we see that the very same USA was supporting and arming Osama Binladen and the Taliban to fight the Russians. In the American movie Rambo 3 the Taliban are portrayed as heroes. Before the American lead invasion of Afghanistan the tribal areas of Pakistan were a peaceful place. I think it's important we use our brain and think for a minute before labelling people as violent or terrorists and actually look at who is invading who's countries and the imperialist motivations behind it. Doing this does not make one anti western it makes one intelligent.

 

 

What is clear about the Taliban is that any civil human being would reasonably condemn their totalitarianism. Anybody who thinks that their ways are harmless and peaceful is someone who believes that women (and girls) are not fully human and do not merit universal rights (and there are an awful lot of people who still believe that).

 

Well before the US invasion and 9/11 Afghanistan was on the news night after night as the Taliban were imposing their regime on parts of Afghanistan that had not lived under such an extreme cultural dictatorship as that and did not want it. It was out and out fascism and not provoked by any business carried out by the West at that time.

 

Oh, and I'm proud to say I've never seen a Rambo movie. If that's the best you can do in defence of the Taliban you must admit it's a bit desperate.

 

But thanks for offering yourself up so neatly as an example of those who just can't bring themselves to condemn *their* side no matter how wicked the behaviour. Sorry mods if this is considered OT.

 

 

ETA:

 

Oh, as regards the soldier rape issue: I can't remember where I saw it but someone had surveyed cases of mass rape in combat (I suppose there will always be one off cases alas). Certainly in the case of Berlin in '45, the factor that made all the difference was the expressed attitude of the commanders. The British army were told that they were not to take advantage of the women and to treat those they encountered with respect, while the Russian soldiers were told to take what(and who)ever they wanted, as the spoils of victory. The soldiers did as they were told. I can't remember what it said about the other nations.

 

I seem to remember outrage at the height of the Bosnian war when systematic rape was made a war crime. The baffled response by the forces concerned at the time was that rape was part of the strategy of war. It was seen as a valid tactic in the battles over territory and populations. They were only following orders.

 

I think it's much the same as anywhere; many people can let themselves do anything if they're given permission to do so by an authority (think Stanford experiment.) When the torture and humiliation in Abu Grhaib came to light, didn't it turn out that there was a culture of 'anything goes' there too? One of them said - no-one told us it was wrong - which is as knuckleheaded as it sounds, but when people are given even a tacit nod that they can do what they like, that's just what they'll do. Not always but often. It's rather an ugly truth that the veil of civilization can be thin even in familiar contexts. A framework of niceties and orders do make a difference, though I believe it's the sincerity of the attitude that propriety matters that's really key.

 

It's too late for trying to find all this stuff online, I'll make myself feel sick.

 

Feel free anyone, to correct me on this, it's just thinking aloud though it's too late to be thinking really, especially for my apparently underused brain.

[Bounce]

What is clear about the Taliban is that any civil human being would reasonably condemn their totalitarianism. Anybody who thinks that their ways are harmless and peaceful is someone who believes that women (and girls) are not fully human and do not merit universal rights (and there are an awful lot of people who still believe that).

 

Well before the US invasion and 9/11 Afghanistan was on the news night after night as the Taliban were imposing their regime on parts of Afghanistan that had not lived under such an extreme cultural dictatorship as that and did not want it. It was out and out fascism and not provoked by any business carried out by the West at that time.

 

Oh, and I'm proud to say I've never seen a Rambo movie. If that's the best you can do in defence of the Taliban you must admit it's a bit desperate.

 

But thanks for offering yourself up so neatly as an example of those who just can't bring themselves to condemn *their* side no matter how wicked the behaviour. Sorry mods if this is considered OT.

 

Well then you must be reffering to the USA as they are the ones who created the Taliban in the first place.

 

I do not remember Afghanistan being on the news night after night before the invasion of Afghanistan in fact it hardely ever was. It only came on the news night after night in the run up to the invasion in order to help justify it with re runs of a low ranking Taliban hiting a womens feet with a stick. I suggest you research Yvonne Ridley a western journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban and was treated so well she converted to Islam. I suggest you also research the rape and turture of women held by the Americans in Baghram Air Base Abu Graib and other such places.

 

Why is it that the USA is able to invade countries here there and everywhere get other countries to come along for the ride pretend it's to liberate people while at the same time bombing the crap out of them and tortuting them and if you highlight this you are suddenly accused of supporting terrorism or barbaric regimes?

[Vague_Boy]

These things happen.

 

I think that defense was used at the Nuremberg trials as well.

 

 

Yeah, because the Taleban don't kill civillians do they?

 

Which of course makes everything alright.

 

I think I'd better leave this thread now. The sheer overwhelming intellectual power of your argument has defeated me.

 

 

I cannot see our men indulging in this kind of thing.

 

That's your problem, moral myopia. "Our boys" wouldn't do this sort of thing because.... well, they're "our boys".

 

I won't post any links as you'd only refuse to look at them, deeming them propaganda.

 

Yeah, The Independent, what a propaganda rag that is.

[purdyamos]

Well then you must be reffering to the USA as they are the ones who created the Taliban in the first place.

 

The Taliban are not clockwork toys, they're humans who are individually and collectively responsible for their own actions. I'm as cynical as the next person about the reasons for countries taking sides in one war then swapping sides for the next, and I was highly vocal about my disgust at the policies of previous Western governments including our own. But at the time I'm referring to, late nineties & millennium, they were most definitely acting on heir own volition, unprovoked by anybody except their neighbouring warlords. Nobody forced them to impose totalitarian gender fascism on Kabul, it was by their own conviction and you know it.

 

I do not remember Afghanistan being on the news night after night before the invasion of Afghanistan in fact it hardely ever was. It only came on the news night after night in the run up to the invasion in order to help justify it with re runs of a low ranking Taliban hiting a womens feet with a stick.

 

Well you're wrong, I remember several quite in depth Newsnight reports way before 9/11 about the encroachment of the totalitarian regime. I actually mentioned this to someone the other day and they remember reports back then too - that most people just ignored at the time. I tried to engage a number of my friends back then who liked to give lip service to things like human rights but it was still quite taboo among most of their ilk to admit that not all evil in the world was committed by white people. It is fascinating to see just how in denial you are of the true full nature of the Taliban regime's oppression. There was more to it than hitting feet with a stick and you know it.

 

 

 

I suggest you research Yvonne Ridley a western journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban and was treated so well she converted to Islam.

 

I thought Yvonne Ridley was quite mad even before she went out there. It's quite common for anyone with a high degree of self-loathing and mental issues to be sucked into a milieu that confirms their self-loathing. Bizarre but true. She doesn't however account for the thousands of Afghani women and girls who had even the most fundamental freedoms taken away, and you know it. If the Taliban are so great how come the women and girls whose lives were overturned by them don't think they're great and insist that the gender fascism be installed forever, because it's so great?

 

 

I suggest you also research the rape and turture of women held by the Americans in Baghram Air Base Abu Graib and other such places.

 

 

You appear to have completely ignored the point I made in my first post here (and which some lovely people commended ) Like many with your mindset, you cannot compute the notion that it's possible to condemn both/all sides, which is exactly what I did in that post. You simply cannot permit yourself to see any bad in anything the Islamist extremists have done. That's not intelligent thinking. I absolutely despised what occurred under the Bush and Blair debacle, I even did an entire series of artworks expressing that disgust and my commitment to the true ideals of Enlightenment*. I was ashamed to be associated any of what happened, and have loudly said so then and since. And I wrote about it in my edit too which was done before I saw the post I reply to here. Honestly, your point is pointless, because I've already made the point you're trying to show me up with. There is evil on all sides. I can admit it - and you can't.

 

 

 

*I just know You'll despise the Enlightenment. There are plenty of muslims who do like it and enjoy living under its legacy. Just not the extremist automaton ones.

 

 

Why is it that the USA is able to invade countries here there and everywhere get other countries to come along for the ride pretend it's to liberate people while at the same time bombing the crap out of them and tortuting them and if you highlight this you are suddenly accused of supporting terrorism or barbaric regimes?

 

 

This point is even stranger - in my first post here I highlighted that I thought the Bush/Blair horror show was shameful - do you really think you're the one highlighting how shocking the illegal wars were? You simply don't have a monopoly on that, much as your black and white thinking style would like it. Most of us on this thread have discussed various times how we felt about the wars and their disgraceful protagonists. I haven't seen anyone accuse you of supporting terrorism - but you have, quite openly, made cooing and kissing noises about the Taliban's regime, which you struggle to see as anything other than misunderstood despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is, by any civilized measure including that of most other muslims a barbaric regime. I accuse you of defending it because that's what you've done.

 

Most people on this thread are able to judge the utterly vile acts in the OP with a frank and honest appraisal, even the posters who are themselves American and who I think you would like to see as all blinkered apologists. Even though posters disagree so often elsewhere, this is one of those times that basic humanity overrides all else.

 

That's bored me enough to be able to nod off now. Good.

[eastbank]

..not at all easty, which is why I highlighted the Holbeck suicide bomber fella

 

 

but i think...the yanks loving dropping their bombs from a great height...why not carpet bomb the mountains where old binny is hiding....they would think twice about hiding in them....nice to see the sas hunting down our enemy within...happy days

[Tipex]

pretty damn disgraceful these folk give good soldiers bad names

 

I agree. They should be locked up for a very long time.