Soldiers face charges over secret 'kill team' which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war
Chris McGreal
9 September 2010
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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Showing posts with label opp to iraq war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opp to iraq war. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
*Northampton (Ma.) City Council Passes Afghan & Iraq Anti-War Resolution
Click on the headline to link to an Associated Press article detailing Northampton's adoption of an anti-war resolution.
Markin comment:
This little news item about a small Massachusetts town’s adoption of an anti-war resolution against Obama’s, yes, Obama’s Afghan and Iraq wars would usually slip by my radar except Northampton is one of those little enclaves that harbor all manner of old time radicals, old New Leftists, feminists, etc. who moved out of the big cities in the 1970s and 1980s looking for the bucolic life while also remaining in the orbit of academia (there are several colleges in the area). Other similar places(non-exclusive list) include Cambridge, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Seattle, Madison (Wis.), Austin (Tex.).
The import of this action is more about the first, tentative, local parliamentary rumblings from the left, the left that supported Barack Obama in 2008 based on his anti-Iraq position (among other things). Now Mr. Obama finds himself in the company of more well-known war criminals like Lyndon Johnson and the Bushes, father and son on the receiving end of anti-war resolutions. Nice company.
Resolutions like this are fine, mainly, as one small aspect of anti-war policy, but I should like to remind all anti-warriors that the real fight on passing such resolutions is around avoiding the vague sentiments reportedly expressed here and a real anti-imperialist position of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied Troops from Afghanistan, Iraq (and the world come to think of it). And then push on from there in our anti-war opposition.
******
In their own words:
Northampton Organizers Summarize "Bring Our War Dollars Home" Campaign
Submitted by ujpadmin on Thu, 10/07/2010 - 10:31am.
by Carl Moos and Sally Weiss
Northampton is a city of about 30,000 in western Massachusetts. It is governed by a Mayor and a nine-member City Council.
This campaign to Bring Our War Dollars Home was led by Dr. Martha Nathan with the help of many members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass.
Petitioning: We heard about the “Bring Our War Dollars Home” campaign which was started in 2009 by Bruce Gagnon in Maine. From the website of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org), we extracted the dollar cost of the war for our small city (which was easily done with the sophisticated software that NPP has set up). Then in April we were able to draft a resolution based on the original one from Maine and took it as a petition to the streets, the farmers’ markets, even at the town dump. We were impressed by the eagerness of many citizens to add their signatures as a way to express their chagrin with the war. When we had 300 signatures, we approached some friendly members of the City Council, who agreed to sponsor the measure in the Council. It was introduced at a mid-June Council meeting, and we mobilized many of our supporters to speak in the “public comment period” of the meeting, including veterans from IVAW and VFP, some of whom had served in Iraq or Afghanistan and spoke against the wars. Some other local military personnel spoke against our resolution. The City Council decided to refer it to three committees of the Council and to call for a Public Forum on the question.
Throughout the entire period, we continued the petition drive, finally ending with about 1,250 names. The campaign was further fueled by our writing op-eds and letters to the editor in the local daily paper. Contrary opinions appeared as well. The newspaper lent editorial space, not taking sides but in support of the community engaging with such a vital topic as war, peace, and the expenditure of the taxes of local citizens.
Public Forum: The forum was one of the best outcomes of the campaign. It was chaired by the mayor; a lot of citizens spoke. Many facets of what is a controversial idea – curtailing money for an ongoing war – were aired. It became a true community dialogue. We supporters of the resolution were in the majority in the audience, but the mayor insisted on dissenters being given a respectful hearing. The newspaper gave good coverage of the Public Forum, and it was broadcast by community TV and our local low-power radio station.
City Council Action: It was time for the voting in City Council. The three committees had reported back (two pro and one con). There were a couple of delays due to absences of key Council members. We kept on coming to Council meetings, bringing in more petitions, and using the public comment period. Responding to concerns expressed at the Public Forum and in consultation with us, two Councilors amended the Resolution to add explicit language calling for bringing the troops home as well as the dollars, and adding concerns about respect for soldiers and veterans’ care. The first Council vote on the final amended resolution came in at 6-2-1; the required second and final vote will occur on October 7. The Mayor and the Council will then be instructed to deliver the War Dollars Resolution to our members of Congress: Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, and Rep. Richard Neal (MA-2). [The City Council resolution is attached - Ed.]
Community Follow-up: A call for a more informal and extended discussion format was called for by several speakers at the Public Forum. Our Alliance took up that call. Two intimate meetings between two members of the peace community and a few veterans’ families – an exquisitely delicate dialogue – have occurred and will continue.
Regional Outreach: Members of our Alliance for Peace and Justice who live in nearby cities and towns of western Massachusetts are rewriting the petitions and beginning to gather signatures. It is heartening that other calls will go out to Bring Our War Dollars Home. We are happy for this chance to explain the War Dollars campaign through the national networking of UFPJ and PDA.
Lessons learned: It was a long campaign, with ups and downs. We needed to be in it for the long haul because it consumed five months of steadfast organizing.
Using the remarkably easy system of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org) to determine the cost of war over these last nine years for each locality was essential to defining “the war dollars”.
Talking to anti-war veterans and getting their engagement in the process was vital.
Contacting and lobbying members of the City Council in advance was important to getting them engaged and knowledgeable about the campaign and therefore to the ultimate success of the measure. Diligent efforts were needed as well to get so much coverage in the local press.
Whether we won or lost the final vote, a key valuable outcome of the effort was the prolonged time of having the question of our war dollars before the public, getting many people thinking and talking with their family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and therefore being willing to participate in the Public Forum.
-- Submitted by Sally Weiss and Carl Moos, members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass., and of the End the War and Occupation “IOT” of Progressive Democrats of America
Markin comment:
This little news item about a small Massachusetts town’s adoption of an anti-war resolution against Obama’s, yes, Obama’s Afghan and Iraq wars would usually slip by my radar except Northampton is one of those little enclaves that harbor all manner of old time radicals, old New Leftists, feminists, etc. who moved out of the big cities in the 1970s and 1980s looking for the bucolic life while also remaining in the orbit of academia (there are several colleges in the area). Other similar places(non-exclusive list) include Cambridge, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Seattle, Madison (Wis.), Austin (Tex.).
The import of this action is more about the first, tentative, local parliamentary rumblings from the left, the left that supported Barack Obama in 2008 based on his anti-Iraq position (among other things). Now Mr. Obama finds himself in the company of more well-known war criminals like Lyndon Johnson and the Bushes, father and son on the receiving end of anti-war resolutions. Nice company.
Resolutions like this are fine, mainly, as one small aspect of anti-war policy, but I should like to remind all anti-warriors that the real fight on passing such resolutions is around avoiding the vague sentiments reportedly expressed here and a real anti-imperialist position of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied Troops from Afghanistan, Iraq (and the world come to think of it). And then push on from there in our anti-war opposition.
******
In their own words:
Northampton Organizers Summarize "Bring Our War Dollars Home" Campaign
Submitted by ujpadmin on Thu, 10/07/2010 - 10:31am.
by Carl Moos and Sally Weiss
Northampton is a city of about 30,000 in western Massachusetts. It is governed by a Mayor and a nine-member City Council.
This campaign to Bring Our War Dollars Home was led by Dr. Martha Nathan with the help of many members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass.
Petitioning: We heard about the “Bring Our War Dollars Home” campaign which was started in 2009 by Bruce Gagnon in Maine. From the website of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org), we extracted the dollar cost of the war for our small city (which was easily done with the sophisticated software that NPP has set up). Then in April we were able to draft a resolution based on the original one from Maine and took it as a petition to the streets, the farmers’ markets, even at the town dump. We were impressed by the eagerness of many citizens to add their signatures as a way to express their chagrin with the war. When we had 300 signatures, we approached some friendly members of the City Council, who agreed to sponsor the measure in the Council. It was introduced at a mid-June Council meeting, and we mobilized many of our supporters to speak in the “public comment period” of the meeting, including veterans from IVAW and VFP, some of whom had served in Iraq or Afghanistan and spoke against the wars. Some other local military personnel spoke against our resolution. The City Council decided to refer it to three committees of the Council and to call for a Public Forum on the question.
Throughout the entire period, we continued the petition drive, finally ending with about 1,250 names. The campaign was further fueled by our writing op-eds and letters to the editor in the local daily paper. Contrary opinions appeared as well. The newspaper lent editorial space, not taking sides but in support of the community engaging with such a vital topic as war, peace, and the expenditure of the taxes of local citizens.
Public Forum: The forum was one of the best outcomes of the campaign. It was chaired by the mayor; a lot of citizens spoke. Many facets of what is a controversial idea – curtailing money for an ongoing war – were aired. It became a true community dialogue. We supporters of the resolution were in the majority in the audience, but the mayor insisted on dissenters being given a respectful hearing. The newspaper gave good coverage of the Public Forum, and it was broadcast by community TV and our local low-power radio station.
City Council Action: It was time for the voting in City Council. The three committees had reported back (two pro and one con). There were a couple of delays due to absences of key Council members. We kept on coming to Council meetings, bringing in more petitions, and using the public comment period. Responding to concerns expressed at the Public Forum and in consultation with us, two Councilors amended the Resolution to add explicit language calling for bringing the troops home as well as the dollars, and adding concerns about respect for soldiers and veterans’ care. The first Council vote on the final amended resolution came in at 6-2-1; the required second and final vote will occur on October 7. The Mayor and the Council will then be instructed to deliver the War Dollars Resolution to our members of Congress: Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, and Rep. Richard Neal (MA-2). [The City Council resolution is attached - Ed.]
Community Follow-up: A call for a more informal and extended discussion format was called for by several speakers at the Public Forum. Our Alliance took up that call. Two intimate meetings between two members of the peace community and a few veterans’ families – an exquisitely delicate dialogue – have occurred and will continue.
Regional Outreach: Members of our Alliance for Peace and Justice who live in nearby cities and towns of western Massachusetts are rewriting the petitions and beginning to gather signatures. It is heartening that other calls will go out to Bring Our War Dollars Home. We are happy for this chance to explain the War Dollars campaign through the national networking of UFPJ and PDA.
Lessons learned: It was a long campaign, with ups and downs. We needed to be in it for the long haul because it consumed five months of steadfast organizing.
Using the remarkably easy system of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org) to determine the cost of war over these last nine years for each locality was essential to defining “the war dollars”.
Talking to anti-war veterans and getting their engagement in the process was vital.
Contacting and lobbying members of the City Council in advance was important to getting them engaged and knowledgeable about the campaign and therefore to the ultimate success of the measure. Diligent efforts were needed as well to get so much coverage in the local press.
Whether we won or lost the final vote, a key valuable outcome of the effort was the prolonged time of having the question of our war dollars before the public, getting many people thinking and talking with their family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and therefore being willing to participate in the Public Forum.
-- Submitted by Sally Weiss and Carl Moos, members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass., and of the End the War and Occupation “IOT” of Progressive Democrats of America
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