Rosa Lichtenstein
9th January 2011, 04:09
We have a sticky on Iraqi war dead, why not one on Afghanistan?
Anyway, here's story that reminds one of Vietnam:
A U.S. army medic pleaded guilty on Wednesday to assaulting unarmed Afghan farmers and other charges in the first court-martial among 12 soldiers accused of terrorizing civilians and colleagues.
Five of the 12 soldiers are accused of premeditated murder. Several are alleged to have collected severed fingers and other human remains as war trophies in Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Robert Stevens, 25, admitted opening fire on two Afghan men for no apparent reason, saying he and other soldiers were acting on orders from a squad leader during a patrol in March.
The charge of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon was the most serious of four offences to which Stevens pleaded guilty at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington.
The case began as an investigation into hashish use in an infantry unit then known as the 5th Stryker Brigade. But it has grown into the most serious prosecution of alleged atrocities by U.S. military personnel since the war began in late 2001.
A potentially explosive aspect of the case is the existence of dozens of grisly photos that four of the troops are accused of having taken of war dead, some of them showing U.S. soldiers posing with the corpses.
The images, so far sealed from public view, have drawn comparisons with pictures of Iraqi prisoners taken by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/medic+pleads+guilty+alleged+Afghan+atrocities+case/3915822/story.html
Anyway, here's story that reminds one of Vietnam:
A U.S. army medic pleaded guilty on Wednesday to assaulting unarmed Afghan farmers and other charges in the first court-martial among 12 soldiers accused of terrorizing civilians and colleagues.
Five of the 12 soldiers are accused of premeditated murder. Several are alleged to have collected severed fingers and other human remains as war trophies in Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Robert Stevens, 25, admitted opening fire on two Afghan men for no apparent reason, saying he and other soldiers were acting on orders from a squad leader during a patrol in March.
The charge of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon was the most serious of four offences to which Stevens pleaded guilty at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington.
The case began as an investigation into hashish use in an infantry unit then known as the 5th Stryker Brigade. But it has grown into the most serious prosecution of alleged atrocities by U.S. military personnel since the war began in late 2001.
A potentially explosive aspect of the case is the existence of dozens of grisly photos that four of the troops are accused of having taken of war dead, some of them showing U.S. soldiers posing with the corpses.
The images, so far sealed from public view, have drawn comparisons with pictures of Iraqi prisoners taken by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/medic+pleads+guilty+alleged+Afghan+atrocities+case/3915822/story.html