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Yep, and I'm not surprised. The MOD after all don't in any way have a history on finding absolutely nothing wrong ever, when it's very convenient.
Such is the way of the world. Won’t be the first time, not the last.
Neither will it be media organisations embellishing things to keep the revenue up.
Nothing like a good bit of SF action to get the war hawks and fantasists out the woodwork though.
Shit dits and whataboutery rule the day.
This. That’s a terrible dit that misses many important details and is a completely different context. Just stop.
A reminder that the alledged atrocities in no way resemble the above – the squadron investigated suffered no injuries in their six month tour, the targetting was “pressured and rushed” (which is not the unit’s fault), and they made multiple reports of detained personnel reaching for weapons (an action which no other unit reported).
These do not appear to be ‘heat of the moment’ bad decisions
Such is the way of the world. Won’t be the first time, not the last.
Yep, their history of covering up their own mess is probably the envy of more accountable Whitehall depts, Deepcut, endless N Ireland inquiries, Iraq, Gibraltar shootings, and those are just off the top of my head, says nothing of the endless cases of just run of mill normal workplace bullying endless sexism, homophobia and so on that's swept under the carpet on a routine basis. But it's Soldiers and so they're largely politically untouchable. C'est la vie.
This. That’s a terrible dit that misses many important details and is a completely different context. Just stop.
I'm prepared to be corrected if you have anything other than "shit happens" to base it on?
You don't need me to tell you this but I'm not ex-military, so all I have to go on is the story as reported - I'm fully prepared to accept that the reality is not exactly as it was reported, but I'm not prepared to dismiss the allegations out of hand solely because the MOD said nothing went wrong, or because of fantasist imaginings that the unit in question were at the end of their collective tethers and made some bad choices in the heat of the moment.
Pondo, is a combatant someone who is in uniform carrying an RPG, therefore fair game to be killed on the battlefield?
Is a combatant someone who has planted an IED/land mine, killed soldiers. Then hidden their small arms and gone to bed? Or are they then non combatants because they’re asleep?
Guerrilla warfare makes things an awful lot more complex than the reports you are reading.
Im not going to go into too much details (I served in war zones, fortunately not Iraq and obviously not SF or a chef….), but there is so much wrong on all sides. The Geneva Convention only works when it is followed by both sides.
Ah - so we're fine to raid suspect houses in the night and shoot the occupants after we've safely detained them?
I KNOW there's nuance here, but if the SAS have been carrying out extrajudicial killings, it has to be investigated and the perpetrators bought to justice. Not least because it's exactly this kind of behaviour that supports the radicalisation of others.
Guerrilla warfare makes things an awful lot more complex
Not really; LOAC is still pretty clear If they wear a uniform, if they openly carry weapons, or it's clear who they are; then enemy combatants, if none of those things are clear they still must be given equivalent protections if captured. I think the first of the "It's forbidden" section makes it pretty plain that once captured, you can't shoot folks and you must treat them as if they're PW. Do not torture injure or kill PW is pretty straightforward.
If only war was as black and white Nick. I’m not trying to be condescending, I don’t like what had happened, but I do have some context to certain situations (not in anyway related to the reports or to SF, but to how the enemy behave, the sights we see and the situations we deal with)
I don’t have access to Afghan newspapers, but I’m presuming there is similar outcry about the torture and murder of westerners (soldiers and civilians)over there?
Think the guys who had laid the land mines had read the LOAC and are now worrying about being dragged to court?
Conventions have to be followed by both sides. This isn’t a game of chess or Call of Duty. Real horrible things happen in war.
The days of WW2 and clearly identifiable targets is over. The enemy do not follow the Geneva convention. If caught you will be tortured, likely to be killed. You are walking around an area that is likely to have illegal land mines.
I don’t think it’s fine to raid houses. I’m saying I’m torn. That means I know it’s wrong. But there’s a lot of wrongs happening. Should it be investigated? I don’t know. Part of me says yes. I certainly don’t think it’s as simple as what the rules of engagement say or the law of armed combat, especially when one side is clearly not following those same laws.
w00dster
Full Member
Tough one this.
Mate, one unit executed 54 people after they were in custody. There's nothing tough about that in the slightest.
I understand British patriotism will let you hide a lot of sins, but come on take the blinkers off.
I don’t have access to Afghan newspapers, but I’m presuming there is similar outcry about the torture and murder of westerners (soldiers and civilians)over there?
Maybe, probably not, but I figure you know that.
Conventions have to be followed by both sides
Not if you’re trying to be better than the opposition and believe in the rule of law.
Are soldiers trying to be morally better than the opposition? Or are they trying to survive?
Or are they trying to survive?
Well they seemed to be doing ok as it was 54-0, despite allowing the victims to go in and get a weapon to try their luck.
w00dster
Full Member
Are soldiers trying to be morally better than the opposition? Or are they trying to survive?
What are they trying to survive, getting bit on the ankles from their captives?
Kilo as to your last point, context is everything. I’m not going to respond to that.
Let's pretend for a minute, it's one unit of Russians executing 10s of prisoners.
What do you think the outcry would be like?
If you are honest with yourself, you'll find your hypocrisy in there somewhere.
w00dster: in what context is it ok for an invading army to shoot captured unarmed civilians or unarmed PoWs?
Didn't the report even say that they were murdering the people who had let them into the compound and led them to the house they wanted to search?
So this is some guys with guns turning up to your house in the middle of the night. You help them and comply with their requests. Then they execute you, drop an AK next to your corpse and tell their bosses (who hardly seemed to believe it) that you magicked a gun out of your backside while in a room with a squad of our brave boys™. It's not shooting an enemy medic by mistake during a battle, or mistaking a farm tool for a weapon and shooting when you shouldn't.
I don’t think it’s fine to raid houses
Honestly, I think it's probably OK, if you've intelligence or good suspicion, but what's not OK, is summarily executing people on spurious grounds afterwards (and so often that officers and other units begin to question the veracity of the reports and openly discuss it).
Apparently the MOD have looked at it before, and basically said, after taking at face value what members of this unit said found there was nothing untoward. Journalist have found at least pretty condemning circumstantial evidence that cast doubt on that, and the MOD have form in this area (not investigating properly), and it's clearly happened in other cases of different SF units (both US and Australian) and have now said they'll look at again. They will clear these soldiers, and even if they don't and offer up some sacrificial lambs, it will never really come to court and be settled satisfactorily. It's already 9 years in the past.
Kilo as to your last point, context is everything. I’m not going to respond to that.
And the context is pretty much as I remarked, 54 people shot, no injuries to the SAS troops and a search technique that seemed to repeatedly allow targets to get their hands on a weapon but the SOP was never changed. Surely someone would’ve thought “at some stage one of these grenades they keep grabbing is going to go off in a confined space and that will be a bad day” unless of course it’s all make believe.
Also, we've reached the ridiculous point of "ah, I see you are condemning the British army for murdering prisoners but you're not condemning the Taliban/Al Qaeda/Isis for doing horrible things"
It's a ludicrous argument.
You can say that British soldiers shouldn't murder civilians without having to qualify it with "9/11 was bad and the Taliban are bad and Bin Laden was bad and....and....and....".
The only people condoning war crimes are the ones defending the British soldiers.
It's all very well for us in blighty to tut at those pesky foreigners getting in the way of our soldiers bullets again; I mean, if it wasn't for their inability to keep a stable country and acquiesce their resources for Western consumption, HMG wouldn't need to keep investing taxpayers money in training killers and sending them thousands of miles overseas with arms and munitions to supress any protest.
Hard to imagine how the Taliban could be so ungrateful; after all, neither they nor Al Qaeda would exist if we (and our staunch allies in the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel) hadn't flooded Afghanistan with AK47s (in an attempt to point the finger at Russia) and stinger missiles in a vast covert war which is still barely mentioned, probably in no small part due to it's role in the rise of Osama Bin Laden.
Of course, things get a bit weird when it comes to covert wars and the intelligence services; between diplomatic immunity and the law allowing undercover operatives to indulge in illegal activity, they basically have a free reign to continue our long history of empire building and intervention on foreign soil.
Still, at least we won't have anyone busting the door down and shooting our families...
Didn’t the report even say that they were murdering the people who had let them into the compound and led them to the house they wanted to search?
If that is the case then that is fairly bad - however was that their job to lure the SAS in to the 'trap' so that they could then blow them up?
So this is some guys with guns turning up to your house in the middle of the night. You help them and comply with their requests. Then they execute you, drop an AK next to your corpse and tell their bosses (who hardly seemed to believe it) that you magicked a gun out of your backside while in a room with a squad of our brave boys™
Who's not to say this were nasty ****ers (based on intelligence that the SAS (British gov had gathered). I am guessing like me you have never been in a war so do not mock 'brave boys'. I wouldnt want to go in to an enemy home in the middle of the night where the chances are someone wants to kill me. Have some respect.
Have you not read the countless accounts of people even joining the afgan army etc just to get in to camps, and then when they get in blowing themselves up and taking soldiers with them. Thats not very ethical, they were even wearing our uniforms !
Context is a big part - all very easy for people sat on a comfy sofa who have never been in that situation to cast judgement whether that be politicians, legal people, the press (gets them a good story), keyboard warriors. If it could not be assured that there was any nasty people in the houses, then why were the SAS sent in in the first place. That must be a chain of command thing, unless this SAS operative were AWOL and just going on killing sprees cause thats afterall what they like doing?
War is shit, shit happens. Back to my earlier post having rules about what is considered a 'fair' way to kill someone is just absurd.
Summary execution of prisoners is the context here. Not some imagined scenario where soldiers are fearing their life.
Bails - it was used as an equivalence. It was as a reply to say that the British should be following the law of armed combat. I was showing that there is no reviews being made by the Taliban to the beheadings, murder, torture, use of landmines which are all against the Geneva convention. However the western troops on the floor are then expected to follow those rules.
Like I said earlier, this isn’t chess. There is no referee. You don’t get another game if your killed, this isn’t call of duty. It’s very easy to say how things should be done differently.
More than happy for you guys to put yourself in their position and show us how to do it properly.
Back to my earlier post having rules about what is considered a ‘fair’ way to kill someone is just absurd.
Then how do you judge a war-crime? If there are no rules (and I'm sorry to get all Godwin) then where does the Holocaust fit with your assessment? How about Japanese using prisoners as bayonet practice? how does My Lai get prosecuted? The firebombing of Tokyo? (OK, that one didn't but very clearly was a crime).
The British Army has a pretty easy to read LOAC and soldiers are briefed on it, these soldiers would've known it, and on the face of it, haven't followed it, and made shit up to cover it up afterward - And that's not my assessment, that's the assessment of their colleagues at the time.
If it could not be assured that there was any nasty people in the houses, then why were the SAS sent in in the first place.
If it's not been mentioned before, the intel was described as "rushed and pressured".
I guess this is where I leave this topic now. Not the best at articulating my thoughts on a forum so probably doesn’t read as what I am trying to say.
I’m still torn on the subject. I do see how it is completely wrong.
w00dster
More than happy for you guys to put yourself in their position and show us how to do it properly.
This is a terrible point. I don't need to be in an imagined and unconnected situation to know I don't execute prisoners
There is no situation, and certainly not 54 times.
Wonder who was overseeing the foreign office's operations in Afghanistan (and ****stan, whose ISI were a key proxy during Operation Cyclone) when all this happened?
https://twitter.com/DFID_UK/status/58267689415749633
Huh, isn't that the president of the Special Forces club?
UN weapons inspector eh?
Oh my...
How man threads are you going to post that in?
Jhj: please, just say whatever it is you're trying to say every time you post something about Mark Sedwill.
Well, like the UK's continued support for Saudi operations in Yemen;
https://twitter.com/declassifiedUK/status/1508708033253175296
https://twitter.com/declassifiedUK/status/1524713498038525952
despite evidence of Saudi's not only supporting wahhabi extremism and indeed terrorist efforts:
https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/872075827575492609
But also ties between the very highest levels of Saudi Intelligence and the 9/11 hijackers:
Though a newly declassified and heavily redacted FBI memo from 2017 stated, "In the late 1990s and up to September 11, 2001, Omar al-Bayoumi was paid a monthly stipend as a cooptee of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) via then Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan…."
The memo continued, "Allegations of al-Bayoumi's involvement with Saudi Intelligence were not confirmed at the time of the 9/11 Commission Report. The above information confirms these allegations."
you remember Bandar Bin Sultan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0B0LFd5oPQ
and the Al Yamamah deal that Prince Andrew got very antsy about when it looked like the Serious Fraud Office were going to investigate
not forgetting the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, who in the 80s regularly met Bin Laden as Saudi Intelligence's (GIP) go between, before going on to work in the London Embassy with the long time head of Saudi Intelligence, Turki Bin Faisal (pictured with the aforementioned Prince Andrew)
https://twitter.com/OldTomYoung/status/1196015237599809536
That was the perspective Khashoggi took to Afghanistan when bin Laden invited him to come cover the conflict. The CIA — with the financial assistance of Saudi intelligence — was backing the mujahedeen for strategic Cold War purposes: to counter and weaken the Soviets. But for Khashoggi, the time he spent with bin Laden and his fellow warriors was a personally moving experience.
He told Wright in those taped interviews about the “many, many times” he spent with bin Laden, traveling with him, staying in his camps, even sleeping with him in the same cave. What was moving about all this? Wright asked him.
“It was moving because we were in a cave,” Khashoggi replied. “It was dark at night, on candlelight. He had a sentiment of Muslims, a concept of jihad, and of being close to God. Knowing that you’re doing the right thing ... fighting those bloody Soviet infidels. It was a beautiful thing to me, particularly at that age.”
Now... with (now Lord) Sedwill's years in a variety of permanent (i.e. non-elected) roles across the upper echelons of Her Majesty's Government concerned with high level intelligence (especially as regards Afghanistan) culminating in the triple whammy of National Security Advisor, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service (along with President of the Special Forces club), how did he not pick up on these things?
And this is the point and the only point.
Once detained, the rules change, irrespective of your targeting directive.
And those that haven’t served please stop trying to engineer a justification, because those of us who have, who’ve had to detain CPERS know that if they were detained, then subsequently injured or killed those fellas were operating way outside the rules.
This is a terrible point. I don’t need to be in an imagined and unconnected situation to know I don’t execute prisoners
There is no situation, and certainly not 54 times.
@ Relapsed Mandalorian
I do wish you would place the quote at the top and then reply to it. It's too damned confusing.
And this is the point and the only point.
I don't think many would disagree with that, but there's been lots of "you don't know what it's like" (you're right, I don't) and "they were targeted for a reason" (doesn't justify it) - irrespective of all of that and more, we* cannot take people captive then just shoot them.
* By which I mean the SAS.
Apologies but on my mobile it’s a little tricky. *edit; just figured it out. Winning
My other point is counter-insurgency is complex and in terms of rules, one sided.
You achieve success by winning hearts and minds of the civilians, breaking the enemies will to fight and getting them to the negotiating table.
Breaking the will to fight when your enemy believes their mission is from god, with a seemingly limitless pool of fighters and a leadership that can harness both legitimate and illegitimate responses from their enemy to keep up morale, dedication to the cause with no rules is bloody hard, pushing to impossible.
All the while their foe has to follow a set of very clear rules and obligations. But, that’s the deal when as a formed army you take on that fight; lots of people are paid very good money to figure out the legitimate soliciting to that problem.
Snotting CPERS isn’t that.
Some might enjoy this read.
I don’t think many would disagree with that, but there’s been lots of “you don’t know what it’s like” (you’re right, I don’t) and “they were targeted for a reason” (doesn’t justify it) – irrespective of all of that and more, we* cannot take people captive then just shoot them.
* By which I mean the SAS.
There always is with this sort of thing, people reach for justification because the esteem they hold others in makes accepting behaviours that challenge that uncomfortable.
I’ve seen blokes do things I never thought they would on ops. It’s hard when reality pierces the bubble we create for ourselves but we’re human and valuable, even those trained to within an inch of their lives and Hines to ruthless military perfection. It’s part of the human condition.
And to include nicks point, then others facilitate the obfuscation or plain block transparency. Which in this area is quite hard because of the roles and tasks they’re asked to conduct.
Of course - but as you say;
Once detained, the rules change, irrespective of your targeting directive.
I have huge empathy for w00dster's dilemma.
*fallible not valuable.
Hi Pondo. Yes apologies fory little outburst. Yes, that was me being a little sarcastic and annoued at some of the points on the thread suggesting that war crimes should be ignored cos its by our troops. Too many times abuse on minorities goes unchecked. I actually came across to the forum as I'd planned on starting to use it more (usually on Bearboens forum) but this was the first thread I came across.
The fact that one of the first comments was 'hopefully not' really got to me and I had to edit/deletey first few respinse to that certain individual. Then thought I'd just leave it at that (what tou pulled me up on and rightly so)..
Shafiq