Author: Scott Neigh

Sudbury Against War and Occupation: US soldiers ‘killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies’

US soldiers ‘killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies’: Soldiers face charges over secret ‘kill team’ which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of warby Chris McGreal, from The Guardian, September 9, 2010. (Link found via A.D., R.D.O., and D.B.) Twelve American soldiers face

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Sudbury Against War and Occupation: US soldiers ‘killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies’

US soldiers ‘killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies’: Soldiers face charges over secret ‘kill team’ which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war
by Chris McGreal, from The Guardian, September 9, 2010. (Link found via A.D., R.D.O., and D.B.)

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.

According to investigators and legal documents, discussion of killing Afghan civilians began after the arrival of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs at forward operating base Ramrod last November. Other soldiers told the army’s criminal investigation command that Gibbs boasted of the things he got away with while serving in Iraq and said how easy it would be to “toss a grenade at someone and kill them”.

One soldier said he believed Gibbs was “feeling out the platoon”.

Investigators said Gibbs, 25, hatched a plan with another soldier, Jeremy Morlock, 22, and other members of the unit to form a “kill team”. While on patrol over the following months they allegedly killed at least three Afghan civilians. According to the charge sheet, the first target was Gul Mudin, who was killed “by means of throwing a fragmentary grenade at him and shooting him with a rifle”, when the patrol entered the village of La Mohammed Kalay in January.

Morlock and another soldier, Andrew Holmes, were on guard at the edge of a poppy field when Mudin emerged and stopped on the other side of a wall from the soldiers. Gibbs allegedly handed Morlock a grenade who armed it and dropped it over the wall next to the Afghan and dived for cover. Holmes, 19, then allegedly fired over the wall.

Later in the day, Morlock is alleged to have told Holmes that the killing was for fun and threatened him if he told anyone.

The second victim, Marach Agha, was shot and killed the following month. Gibbs is alleged to have shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. In May Mullah Adadhdad was killed after being shot and attacked with a grenade.

The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies.

Five soldiers – Gibbs, Morlock, Holmes, Michael Wagnon and Adam Winfield – are accused of murder and aggravated assault among other charges. All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.

The soldier, who was straight out of basic training and has not been named, said he witnessed the smoking of hashish and drinking of smuggled alcohol but initially did not report it out of loyalty to his comrades. But when he returned from an assignment at an army headquarters and discovered soldiers using the shipping container in which he was billeted to smoke hashish he reported it.

Two days later members of his platoon, including Gibbs and Morlock, accused him of “snitching”, gave him a beating and told him to keep his mouth shut. The soldier reported the beating and threats to his officers and then told investigators what he knew of the “kill team”.

Following the arrest of the original five accused in June, seven other soldiers were charged last month with attempting to cover up the killings and violent assault on the soldier who reported the smoking of hashish. The charges will be considered by a military grand jury later this month which will decide if there is enough evidence for a court martial. Army investigators say Morlock has admitted his involvement in the killings and given details about the role of others including Gibbs. But his lawyer, Michael Waddington, is seeking to have that confession suppressed because he says his client was interviewed while under the influence of prescription drugs taken for battlefield injuries and that he was also suffering from traumatic brain injury.

“Our position is that his statements were incoherent, and taken while he was under a cocktail of drugs that shouldn’t have been mixed,” Waddington told the Seattle Times.

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Sudbury Against War and Occupation: US soldiers ‘killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies’

US soldiers ‘killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies’: Soldiers face charges over secret ‘kill team’ which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of warby Chris McGreal, from The Guardian, September 9, 2010. (Link found via A.D., R.D.O., and D.B.) Twelve American soldiers face

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Sudbury Against War and Occupation: There Are No Heroes In Illegal And Immoral Wars

There Are No Heroes In Illegal And Immoral Wars
by Robert Jensen, from Z-Net, August 28, 2010.

When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”

While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans — military and civilian — to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.

This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism — or risk being labeled callous or traitors — undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.

The legal case is straightforward: Neither invasion had the necessary approval of the United Nations Security Council, and neither was a response to an imminent attack. In both cases, U.S. officials pretended to engage in diplomacy but demanded war. Under international law and the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 is clear that “all Treaties made,” such as the UN Charter, are “the supreme Law of the Land”), both invasions were illegal.

The moral case is also clear: U.S. officials’ claims that the invasions were necessary to protect us from terrorism or locate weapons of mass destruction were never plausible and have been exposed as lies. The world is a more dangerous place today than it was in 2001, when sensible changes in U.S. foreign policy and vigorous law enforcement in collaboration with other nations could have made us safer.

The people who bear the greatest legal and moral responsibility for these crimes are the politicians who send the military to war and the generals who plan the actions, and it may seem unfair to deny the front-line service personnel the label of “hero” when they did their duty as they understood it. But this talk of heroism is part of the way we avoid politics and deny the unpleasant fact that these are imperial wars. U.S. military forces are in the Middle East and Central Asia not to bring freedom but to extend and deepen U.S. power in a region home to the world’s most important energy resources. The nation exercising control there increases its influence over the global economy, and despite all the U.S. propaganda, the world realizes we have tens of thousands of troops on the ground because of those oil and gas reserves.

Individuals can act with courage and compassion serving in imperial armies. There no doubt were soldiers among the British forces in colonial India who acted heroically, and Soviet soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe were capable of bravery. But they were serving in imperial armies engaged in indefensible attempts to dominate and control. They were fighting not for freedom but to advance the interests of elites in their home countries.

I recognize the complexity of the choices the men and women serving in our military face. I am aware that economic realities and the false promises of recruiters lure many of them into service. I am not judging or condemning them. Judgments and condemnations should be aimed at the powerful, who typically avoid their responsibility. For example, a journalist recently asked Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to reflect on U.S. culpability for the current state of Iraqi politics. Crocker was reluctant to go there, and then refused even to consider the United States’ moral responsibility: “You can ask the question, was the whole bloody thing a mistake?” he said. “I don’t spend a lot of time on that.”

It’s not surprising U.S. policymakers don’t want to reflect on the invasions, but the public must. Until we can tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy, and how the military is used to advance that policy in illegal and immoral ways, we will remain easy marks for the politicians and their propagandists.

Part of that propaganda campaign is suggesting that critics of the war don’t support the troops, don’t recognize their sacrifices, don’t appreciate their heroism. We escape the propaganda by not playing that game, by telling the truth even when it is painful.

———————–

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film “Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,” which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist. Information about the film, distributed by the Media Education Foundation, and an extended interview Jensen conducted with Osheroff are online at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/osheroff.html.

Jensen can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html. To join an email list to receive articles by Jensen, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html.

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Sudbury Against War and Occupation: Canadian Military Seeking Lessons From Israeli Occupying Army

Ties that Bind: Canadian military seeking lessons from Israeli occupying army
by Yavar Hameed and Jeffrey Monaghan, from The Dominion, August 25, 2010. (Link via D.B.)

OTTAWA—Canadian military officials have undertaken a comprehensive effort with their Israeli counterparts to “pursue deeper relationships,” to borrow from Israel’s weapons, war training, and counter-insurgency strategies, and to strengthen diplomatic ties, according to documents obtained through access to information (ATI) requests.

The documents from the Department of National Defence (DND) detail an October 2009 visit to Israel by General Walter Natynczyk, chief of the Canadian Forces (CF).

“Your trip to Israel…will also offer you insight into broader regional issues, the multitude of threats facing Israel, the lessons learned from IDF [Israeli Defence Force] operations, and Israeli strategic thinking and military equipment,” states one briefing note.

Although Israel has found itself increasingly isolated diplomatically in recent years, support from successive Canadian governments has grown.

“It is harder to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days,” ultra right-wing Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on a trip to Canada last year. “No other country in the world has demonstrated such a full understanding of us.”

Canadian government and military officials appear ready to disregard what critics like South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu refer to as Israel’s apartheid practices in order to maintain, as the documents put it, a “robust and rich” bilateral relationship.

The DND refused repeated requests for an interview.

The series of formal high-level meetings between figures in the Canadian military and the IDF have gone under the name of “Strategic Dialogue,” according to the disclosed documents. The first of these meetings, described in the documents as being “very successful” took place in Tel Aviv in February 2008.

“Overall, the trip solidified existing friendships, uncovered further opportunities for military-military cooperation, and, perhaps most importantly, revealed that DND/CF is well situated to pursue deeper relationships,” states a memo written after the meetings. Since February, 2008, there have been a number of formal “staff talks” between the upper echelons of Canada and Israel’s defence establishments.

Comprised mostly of briefing notes and backgrounders, the documents explain contentious issues, outline strict talking points, and, under heavy redaction, disclose “future considerations” for improving Canadian bilateral relations with Israel and the IDF. Several briefing notes deal exclusively with particular issues of cooperation, such as Science and Technology Cooperation, Military Medical Cooperation, and Defence Material Relations.

Documents prepared for Natynczyk’s trip in October, 2009, note that one of the “key objectives” was to “examine IDF equipment, tactics, doctrine, procedures, that might have operational benefits for the Canadian Forces.” To that end, Natynczyk met with a host of IDF senior generals, as well as Defence Minister Ehud Barak. The meetings focussed on gaining access to Israeli areas of “expertise,” including gaining insights into Israeli military strategies and tactics.

While meeting Brigadier General Harel Knafo, Natynczyk received a briefing on “the lessons learned from [2008’s] Gaza War.” Knafo commanded Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion during the Gaza War that killed more than 1380 Palestinians, 400 of them children, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

The visit came on the heels of the Goldstone Report, a UN investigation into the Gaza War by former South African Supreme Court judge Richard Goldstone.

In his report, Goldstone criticized both Hamas and Israel for crimes of war during the conflict, but the report singled out Israel for the most serious condemnation. Goldstone documented the IDF’s use of Palestinians as human shields – itself a war crime – and warned that the Israeli blockade of Gaza amounted to “collective punishment intentionally inflicted by the government of Israel on the people of the Gaza Strip.”

Israel’s war, according to Goldstone, was designed to “punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population.”

Natynczyk also discussed counter-insurgency operations with top Israeli General Gabi Ashkenazi.

“[Ashkenazi] suggested further military-military cooperation with Canada, including regarding doctrines and tactics that enable forces to switch conduct both asymmetric and conventional operations and switch between the two,” recounts a summary note of the meeting.

The switch between “asymmetric” and “conventional” operations is a reference to Israel’s special brand of counter-insurgency: the unconventional, often urban warfare Israel engages in against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Presiding over one of the longest military occupations in modern times, Israel is an acknowledged leader in innovating new tactics of urban warfare. As Israeli scholar and architect Eyal Weizman has documented, the Israeli military reshape the battleground to meet their objectives in the densely populated and often impenetrable cities and refugee camps of the West Bank: rather than fight in the streets, for instance, they blast holes through the walls and ceilings of houses, moving in this manner often through entire streets.

Battles in half-demolished living rooms, bedrooms and corridors of refugee camp homes have blurred the lines between civilian and military – or private and public – space.

This is the military laboratory in which the “doctrines and tactics” mentioned by Ashkenazi are studied and, as the memo indicates, exported to other urban environments.

Canadian military officials have clearly stated their strategy in Afghanistan has focused on developing stronger counterinsurgency tactics. Canada has said it will withdraw its military presence in the country in 2011, but Canadian Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie has said Canada’s military future is based on counterinsurgency measures.

“It’s not going to be peacemaking anymore, it’s going to be counter-insurgency because the odds of us doing peacemaking between two functional states are probably pretty low, ergo COIN (counter-insurgency),” he told the Toronto Star in 2009.

While clearly interested in borrowing from IDF technologies, briefing notes also indicate Canadian officials are eager to win recognition of their war-making capacities from both Israeli and U.S. authorities.

“In Israel, the IDF’s warm welcome and insistence [redacted] is open to Canada reflects both the deepening relations between our two militaries and the credibility and respect won by CF operations in Afghanistan,” says a briefing memo to Natynczyk.

In various notes, Natynczyk is reminded to highlight Canada’s military efforts in Afghanistan and stress Canada’s contributions to various U.S. and Israeli diplomatic initiatives.

In addition to advancing military cooperation through the Strategic Dialogue, documents reveal that Natynczyk’s trip is part diplomatic mission. An array of diplomatic initiatives are tied to the Strategic Dialogue, and Canada’s increased role in supporting a militarized international agenda premised on an aggressive and militarized Israel in the Middle East.

The Canadian military’s most significant operation in Israel is in support of US-led operations under the command of US Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton. Dayton, in close coordination with Israel, leads the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) program, initiated in 2005. It was created, according to then-US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in order to oversee the training of a new integrated Palestinian police force and to referee problems between rival political parties Hamas and Fatah. Under Dayton’s leadership, the program is closely coordinated with the Israelis. Canadian members make up the bulk of Dayton’s training team – with 18 Canadian officers alongside 10 American.

The USSC program has come under scrutiny, though. A 2008 exposé by Vanity Fair revealed that these security forces attempted to overthrow Hamas and prop up Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party following Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections.

US forces face restrictions around their movement in the West Bank, though, that Candian forces do not. Due in large part to Canada’s reputation as a “trusted, impartial third-party,” the notes claim that CF personnel enter the West Bank daily allowing them to offer a useful window of intelligence on the West Bank to the American army. As briefing notes indicate, Dayton is “an enthusiastic advocate of Canada’s support to his mission” with the US government.

Canada plays a similar conduit like role in respect to facilitating communication between NATO and Israel. In this regard, the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv is serving as Israel’s NATO Contact Point Embassy until 31 December 2010.

Beyond the role as a NATO contact, the documents reveal a small glimpse into Canada’s behind-the-scenes role in lobbying for Israel’s inclusion into NATO.

Canada serves as “the liaison between Israel and NATO, assists with visits of NATO officials…to Israel.” Canada is also the first country to speak at NATO meetings that involve Israel, details one briefing note.

The documents show Canada has been working with Israel towards its goal of a stronger partnership with NATO. This includes helping Israel in its “pursuit of a Status of Forces Agreement, getting access to the NATO Maintenance Supply Agency, [redacted].”

The fundamental principle of the Cold War NATO alliance is that an attack against one party is equivalent to an attack against all parties of the alliance. Hence bringing Israel into NATO could mean that Canada would automatically declare war on an aggressor that attacked Israel, whatever the definition of aggression.

These sentiments were recently made public when junior Foreign Affairs minister Peter Kent mused to the magazine Shalom Life that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada.” Kent later apologized for the public comment but noted that Israel understood its substance.

The documents are only a small glimpse into the dialogue between the two nations’ militaries. A talking point laid out in a note to Natynczyk during his October 2009 visit confirm a strong commitment to increasing and future collaboration.

“I am pleased with the increased cooperation between Canadian Forces and the IDF and I am looking forward to future coordination and partnership between our armed forces.”

SIDEBAR: Recent Developments in Canada-Israel Relations

• Although Canada’s diplomatic support for an Israeli state predates Israel’s inception, policy toward the country became more friendly under Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, and veered further right under Stephen Harper.

• Among the long list of examples of Canada’s ardent pro-Israel turn was Harper’s response to the massive bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 following the Hezbollah abduction of two Israeli soldiers. While the international community decried Israel’s aberrant bombardment, Harper described it as a “measured response.”

• The conflict killed at least 1,500 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, and severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure. Among the accounts of widespread collateral damage was the death of Canadian soldier Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener.

• Kruedener was among four UN Military Observ­ers killed when the Israeli Air Force attacked a UN observation post in southern Lebanon. Brief­ing notes written for Natynczyk shed light on Canadian diplomatic actions in the aftermath of Kruedener’s death.

• The notes state Israel took responsibility for their deaths, but that the killings were unintentional. Unbeknownst to many, however, the notes mention that Harper subsequently wrote to Israeli Prime Min­ister Olmert accepting Israel’s account. While Harper presents himself as a defender of military personnel, it appears – in the face of widespread criticism of Israel following the attack on the UN position – that Canada was more inclined to defend the reputation of its ally than demand answers to uncomfortable questions on behalf of its soldiers.

• Revealing Israel’s sensitivity to the issue, Natynczyk is warned in the briefings: “Israel has made clear that it has answered all the questions it intends to with respect to the deaths of the four.”

Yavar Hameed is a human rights lawyer and sessional lecturer at Carleton University in Ottawa. Jeff Monaghan works with Books to Prisoners in Ottawa.

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Sudbury Against War and Occupation: Canadian Military Seeking Lessons From Israeli Occupying Army

Ties that Bind: Canadian military seeking lessons from Israeli occupying armyby Yavar Hameed and Jeffrey Monaghan, from The Dominion, August 25, 2010. (Link via D.B.) OTTAWA—Canadian military officials have undertaken a comprehensive effort with their Israeli counterparts to “pursue deeper relationships,” to borrow from Israel’s weapons, war training, and counter-insurgency

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Sudbury Against War and Occupation: Canadian Military Seeking Lessons From Israeli Occupying Army

Ties that Bind: Canadian military seeking lessons from Israeli occupying armyby Yavar Hameed and Jeffrey Monaghan, from The Dominion, August 25, 2010. (Link via D.B.) OTTAWA—Canadian military officials have undertaken a comprehensive effort with their Israeli counterparts to “pursue deeper relationships,” to borrow from Israel’s weapons, war training, and counter-insurgency

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