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
Thursday 9 September 2010

Andrew Holmes, Michael Wagnon, Jeremy Morlock and Adam Winfield

are four of the five Stryker soldiers who face murder charges.

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.

Saudi splurges on weapons ... for what?

Photo EPA

Saudi Arabia is about to buy another $60bn worth of military hardware from the US, and even The Guardian is dutiful in parroting, without question, the accepted western narrative :

The sale, under negotiation since 2007, is aimed mainly at bolstering Saudi defences against Iran, which the US suspects will achieve a nuclear weapons capability within the next few years. The transfer of advanced technology, mainly planes, is to provide Saudi Arabia with air superiority over Iran.

Ignoring the fact that miltary aircraft (which form the bulk of the deal as we know it) are prettty much useless against a nuclear missile, especially one that does not exist, $60bn buys a mind boggling amount of firepower, so that must mean that Saudi Arabia's military capacity right now is woefully insufficent compared to Iran's, right?

Er, no.

UK & Canadian Troops Investigated Over Heroin Trafficking Claims

from mediamonarchy/guardian: Military police are investigating claims that British soldiers have been involved in heroin trafficking in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said it was aware of "unsubstantiated" claims that troops were buying the drug from dealers and shipping it out of the country in military aircraft. An inquiry is focusing on British and Canadian personnel at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar. Security has been tightened, with additional sniffer dogs being used. Afghanistan is the source of 90% of the world's opium. Some drug bosses in the country have implicated soldiers in the trade. Last year the Sunday Times spoke to one dealer who said members of the military were the second largest buyers of heroin after foreign drug lords. The newspaper was told: "The soldiers whose term of duty is about to finish, they give an order to our boss." A team of detectives from the Ministry of Defence's special investigations branch is believed to be heading the investigation into the claims.


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WHAT OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING FOR IN AFGHANISTAN

LINDA HEARD: US Should Allow Impartial 9/11 Probe

But will Americans ever remove their rose-coloured spectacles long enough to demand the truth about 9/11? Perhaps not!

By Linda Heard via My Catbird Seat

Nine years have passed since America was attacked, yet ceremonies in New York and Pennsylvania commemorating those who died on September 11, 2001, are as poignant as ever. Nobody can deny that 9/11 shook the United States to its very core or that its memory still has the capacity to bring Americans to tears.

Indeed, sensitivities in the US are still so raw that some 70 per cent of the population is reluctant to see an Islamic cultural centre two blocks from where the World Trade Centre Twin Towers once touched the sky.

Few would deny that the Bush administration’s response to the tragedy changed the world. When Washington realized how vulnerable the country was, and in response to calls for revenge, it launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, initiated the ‘War on Terror’, opened gulags to detain terror suspects, engaged in the liberal use of torture, rode roughshod over the Geneva conventions and subjected ordinary citizens to gross invasions of privacy and abuses of civil liberties.

The point is 9/11 and its ramifications were — and still are — no small matter. Almost everyone on the planet has been affected by that day in one way or the other; not least thousands of fallen coalition and Nato soldiers and up to a million Afghan and Iraqi civilians. Yet, for some strange reason, there has never been a thorough and impartial investigation of that day and the events that led up to it.

Philip Giraldi: A Bipartisan Look at the Israel Lobby

Yes, there is quite a lot to examine and if anyone is seriously interested in genuine threats against the United States AIPAC and the Israel Lobby are good places to start.  But to do so would not be welcomed in many influential circles and there would be inevitable retaliation from the chattering class and the media.

By Philip Giraldi via My Catbird Seat

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group’s September 10th report ”Assessing the Terrorist Threat” concludes that there is a growing threat to the United States derived from the radicalization of some American Muslims, a number of whom have joined extremist groups abroad.  The report and its conclusions have received wide distribution in the United States mainstream media, to include a Washington Post article on September 11th headlined “US Must Deal With Homegrown Terror Problem.” National Public Radio reported it as “Homegrown terrorists pose biggest threat” while the Associated Press headlined ”US must deal with domestic radical problem.”

As the Bipartisan Policy Center was founded by five former United States senators, its findings have an aura of respectability.  This is unfortunate as the report deliberately seeks to heighten fear of a minority community based on what it might do, not necessarily what it has done.  The timing of the release of the report is also intriguing, coming as it did just before 9/11, heightening the already considerable anti-Muslim sentiment being expressed nationwide over the proposal for an Islamic community center in southern Manhattan near the former site of the World Trade Center.

Andrea Mitchell's NBC Interview: Iranian President Blames Zionists Influence Obama

By Tim King — Salem-News.Com

ANDREA MITCHELL OF NBC INTERVIEW PRESIDENT AHMEDINEJAD

(SALEM, Ore.) – NBC Reporter Andrea Mitchell’s interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad broke new ground with the American public, by actually allowing the idea of Zionist control to air on an American news network. I’m not saying it has never been mentioned, but this is a real breakthrough.

The interview initially centered around the release of Sarah Shourd, an American hiker, one of three held in an Iranian jail since 31 July 2009, when they were arrested for espionage as they crossed from war torn Iraq into Iran.

Shane Bauer, 27, and Jeff Fattal, 28, remain in Iranian custody and will face the country’s judicial system. Shourd was released for health reasons.

Ahmadinejad stresses in the interview below that Iranians do not dislike Americans and he believes that in fact, Americans also really don’t hate Iranians, but they are often guided by hardcore religious fanatics in the U.S. just like we see in the Mideast, and Israel.