The allegations are reminiscent of the military’s darkest days in Vietnam.
Again, young GI’s caught up in a difficult war are accused of widespread drug use and the random killing of innocent civilians, apparently for sport or thrills.
But the parents of one of the five soldiers charged with the premeditated murder of unarmed Afghans say that before one of the murders they tried to warn the Army and a U.S. Senator – and no one helped.
Now their son, 20-year-old specialist Adam Winfield, is charged with taking part in a killing three months after the Winfield family tried to blow the whistle.
The soldiers were serving at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in southern Afghanistan. On a videotaped confession obtained by ABC News, one of the soldiers, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, described how his Sergeant, Calvin Gibbs, had the men in his unit pick out civilians at random and then kill them with grenades and rifle fire.
“Gibbs called it like, ‘Hey you guys wanna, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?’ And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude.”
Morlock told how Gibbs allegedly threw a grenade at the civilian, and then told Morlock and the others, ‘Wax this guy. You know, kill this guy, kill this guy.’ ”
Morlock said that killing people came “too easy” to Gibbs. “”He just really doesn’t have any problems with f___ing killing these, these people, to be honest.”
Morlock also told investigators he believed that Gibbs was crazy and wouldn’t hesitate to silence witnesses.
“If Gibbs knew that I was sitting in front of this camera right now,” said Morlock, “there’s no doubt in my mind that he’d f—— take me out if he had to.”
This was supposed to be a “good” war. The Nobel committee even gave Obama a prize for escalating it, remember? We’re not winning their hearts and minds, we’re losing our souls.
We need to get out of Central Asia. Now.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
Crazy.
Scary stuff. I won’t pretend to understand what those brave men and women go through over there everyday. That said, killing civilians, even in war, shouldn’t come ‘easy’ to anyone. Sadly there are always civilian deaths in any conflict, but when acted upon in this manner, it is very very sha,eful (assuming that the allegations are true, of course).
Afghanistan = Vietnam, Obama = Nixon
If it isn’t already obvious, this won’t end well.
That’s why we need to cut out losses and get out NOW
(Where is Code Pink and the rest of the anti-war movement these days, anyway?)
they did “crash” colbert’s hearing…
but everyone was warned that any “disruptions” would lead to instant removal.
I’ve been reading bits and drabs of Woodward’s new book about the war between Obama and the Generals. It’s a bizarre account. Obama’s afraid of being LBJ. I don’t think he realizes that he should be more afraid of being Nixon.
In the words of Maxwell Smart, he missed it by “that much” He’s going down as another Nixon IMO.
Wow, Dak. It seems that our fears of Obama’s deep insecurities leading him to be unable to make sound decisions were right all along. Now the book is peaking my interest.
I’ve been looking at those conversations too, and it’s weird. It seems to me he kept asking the generals for the impossible – “give me a plan to both withdraw and also win and look good.”
Then he’d get pissy when they could not give him an “option” that allows him to both withdraw and win.
My husband, who is a sarcastic, atheist, liberal-tarian-type, ex-military, and by no means a bleeding heart, is just disgusted. He said to me upon reading some of this: “The military is a tool. It’s a shovel, or a pickaxe, or dynamite, or whatever. You don’t ask the shovel about the wisdom of, or to impact the consequences of, digging the hole. YOU decide if and where you want the hole dug, and how big. Then you send the shovel. It digs until you say stop. That’s what it does. Either it is crucial that we win in Afghanistan, and it’s militarily possible, or it’s not. If it TRULY is, then you do what the fuck it takes, even if it’s a massive escalation and occupation, to the howls of all. If it’s NOT both crucial and winnable, then you get the hell OUT. ”
Obama seems pissed at his generals because he wants some cover to vote “present”, and they won’t give it to him, because they can’t. They understand that is not their function. Their function is to blow shit up when needed. They do it really well. Whether they should is not their purview.
I love your explanation. It is spot on. Obama is a pussy that can’t and won’t get out and to he’ll with the casualties…. The soldiers, their civilians and our economy. Not a damn good thing will ever come out of this clusterf*ck!
One Nation March
http://www.onenationforpeace.org/
This is a joke, right?
insane;-)
Crazies shouldn’t have guns. This is the result of recruiting whoever because we needed more people–draft them. Then we’d see this war stopped.
Sadly, they might not have started out crazies. Going out day after day and watching your fellow human beings being blown to bits can’t be good on the psyche. There probably is a point where you get desensitized or snap.
I’ll say it again. There is a reason so many men and women are coming back f-ed up and unable to assimilate back into society. You can’t throw away all the rules for humanity taught to you from the knee(no killing, no stealing, no lying, etc,etc)for periods of time and expect to be unchanged by it.
The reasons war should be a last resort should be because it has such an impact on the psyche of those forced to participate in it.
I’m not in favor of a blanket draft, but I’d love a law with a “trigger clause” for the draft. Something like this:
“If more than X% of the current military is being required to do more than 2 tours of duty in any conflict, current or future, the draft automatically kicks in.”
I think it would encourage an all-volunteer military that really wants to be doing that, which I concede is a good thing. But it also make presidents realize that if they do commit troops, it had better be with a clear goal, swift, and winnable, or they will be in a world of shit at home.
I’ve always been of the mind that every single person coming out of high school should serve a mandatory stint in the service for at least 2 years. Just like it used to be. We should also be subject to recall at any time.
My reasoning is that if we all have to suffer real world consequences then maybe we might take a moment to reflect before electing “cowboy” personality types to the highest office or incompetent narcissists or corrupt congress critters.
One of the really strange things about war, at least to me, is that we send off our young and vulnerable to war when we should be sending people my age and older. As a forty something year old I have had opportunities, have lived, been married for many years, etc. As an 18 – 20 year old I had none of those opportunities. Seems insane to put our future in harms way.
We could make a “FEMA Corps” one of the options.
Great post, myiq. You said it all in just five sentences.
this is heart breaking all around. We will never learn.
This is awful. How doubly sad that his parents tried to warn that their son was becoming unstable, and were ignored.
I think it was less about being unstable and more about fearing for his life. These guys beat the crap out of a whistle blower and threatened him. They were killing the native people for sport and collecting trophies.
If someone who is killing people for the sport of it threatened me, I’d believe them.
There’s a pattern emerging. The underwear bomber’s dad tried to warn authorities about his son, too.
Forget “no one could have imagined.” Now it’s “no one could have expected us to do anything about it.”
So corps hold workers hostage once again? Sadly, no surprise.
I heard that. Now they’re denying it, but the journal is standing by the story.
That comment was in response to the story about McDonald’s cutting health care….
You must have got drunk and wandered into the wrong thread again. Try the open thread.
Quelle surprise.
Take a group of people. Use some mind bending drills.
Brainwash them.
Give them weapons. Teach them to kill. Preach the word of the superiority of “our way” and what the hell do you expect.
They kill .
So shooting someone from afar is fine and you can get a medal. Kill someone up close and you are a maniac.
Killing is killing. I don’t see a whole lot of difference in why it’s done.
They are still dead.
It’s all wrong.
I spent 12 years in the military and never felt brainwashed.
I did not agree with Iraq but do think that it is incredibly naive to believe that there aren’t occasions when you might be required to fight(which is why a military exists).
For the record, I do philosophically agree with you that killing is a repugnant act. I even consider it a sin(regardless of why it is occurring). However, there are occasions where I could see myself taking a life and praying for forgiveness the rest of my life. for example, if someone broke in our house and threatened my kids lives. I’d kill to protect them. It’s sad and be horrendous but I’d do it.
How well I remember the idiotic behaviors of Vietnam:
think we would all kill to protect our kids.
😉
Any species unwilling to kill to protect their children is doomed to extinction.
Ditto. MIQ,