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Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
31–40 of 89 posts
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#32Australian SASR already had a major scandal. There's been open reporting in the past about some bad actors over the years in USSOCOM. It'd be interesting for someone to do some serious psych research on how many of these people were psychopaths who slipped through the cracks as opposed to people who broke bad after several combat deployments.
The general public never payed much attention to GWOT as it was, but one of the consequences of it was that the special operations forces as a community were "rode hard and put away wet" as they say for 20+ years. Take someone, put them through a grueling selection process to become "the best of the best," which can cultivate a corresponding ego. Then pound the hell out of them over a full career with combat deployment after combat deployment, raid after raid.
It doesn't excuse what happened by any means, but is there legitimately a limit that needs to be known about how much violence someone can take before they give in to the beast within? Military aviators have crew rest limitations because it was discovered that beyond a certain level of fatigue, you are literally killing people. The experience of Vietnam POWs forced changes to military training for being taken captive, because they found out that if you torture anyone enough, they will eventually break.
So is the solution here that the SOF communities are attracting too many psychopaths and screening needs to be changed, or is it that people were being broken by war, which is a totally different problem?
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#33When I read about terrible things done in a group like this, my first thought is: would I have done the right thing? I like to think I'm a good person, but these people probably do, too. It sounds like there's something rotten in the culture of the special forces that encouraged or at least overlooked these actions. What would I have done if I had been there? Would I have stood up against people I saw as my brothers…
Soldiers are not trained to do police work, yet that's what many are asked to do. An informant provides a tip that someone is manufacturing IED's, so soldiers are sent to investigate. They're not trained for that. Worse yet, they're the targets of the crime they're investigating. Police are not typically asked to investigate an attempt on their own lives for good reason.
Even with appropriate training and when investigating crimes that do not target themselves, police are often guilty of abuses. In an occupation, the sheer numbers involved would guarantee abuses even if it were police operating under ideal conditions.
It is usually not feasible to conduct military operations with a huge force of trained police officers. However, even with people of the wrong background investigating without detachment, there should be an expectation for a culture of conscientiousness. That's the truly shocking thing about this article. Soldiers were put into a situation where things were expected to go wrong, but the attitude from command was to let it go wrong gleefully and to help cover it up afterwards. There was a complete surrender to inhumanity, on the part of command, before the conflict even started. That's what is truly reprehensible. Perhaps we must forgive people for doing bad things in the moment and under duress, but there should be no forgiveness for those who do it happily, daily, and without complaint.
This was a failure of command even more than it was a failure of the soldiers who committed crimes.
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#34When I read about terrible things done in a group like this, my first thought is: would I have done the right thing? I like to think I'm a good person, but these people probably do, too. It sounds like there's something rotten in the culture of the special forces that encouraged or at least overlooked these actions. What would I have done if I had been there? Would I have stood up against people I saw as my brothers…
Keep in mind that a good part of the reason why this came to light is SAS troopers doing the right thing and testifying against the accused.
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making a dent is possible, but to take on power you need other powerful people/networks backing you. Most whistleblowers don't do enough homework. They just want to dump things out there and hope for the best. That's never good enough.
> but to take on power you need other powerful people/networks backing you. Most whistleblowers don't do enough homework. Doing your homework and having powerful people behind you are orthogonal. You can do all the homework you want but powerful people got in power and staid in power for playing for those in power, they're not gonna throw away all that to die on your hill with you. You might think you can get away by…
> Doing your homework and having powerful people behind you are orthogonal
In the way sifting flour and beating eggs are orthogonal steps in cake making. You need to do both, and not necessarily in any order.
> You might think you can get away by playing one political side against the other for your protection and rally support
“Sides” are an abstraction. The first rule of power is its quantum are people. You need people on your side to have power. Not abstractions.
> Once you start "doing your homework" those in power will already find out you're rocking the boat and will lock you up
No they won’t. Even these whistleblowers were publicly tried to scandalous effect for the impacted agencies.
The step most whistleblowers fail to take is the simplest one when confronting a powerful entity: consulting a lawyer.
> longer you're in possession of dirt that can get those at the top in trouble, the more you risk finding yourself "Epsteined"
This is nonsense and worse, a self-defeating argument. You think the people Epstein had dirt on didn’t know it until he was jailed?
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but to take on power you need other powerful people/networks backing you. Most whistleblowers don't do enough homework. Doing your homework and having powerful people behind you are orthogonal. You can do all the homework you want but powerful people got in power and staid in power for playing for those in power, they're not gonna throw away all that to die on your hill with you. You might think you can get away by…
> Doing your homework and having powerful people behind you are orthogonal In the way sifting flour and beating eggs are orthogonal steps in cake making. You need to do both, and not necessarily in any order. > You might think you can get away by playing one political side against the other for your protection and rally support “Sides” are an abstraction. The first rule of power is its quantum are people. You need pe…
>You need to do both
How do you do that?
>You need people on your side to have power.
How do you get them?
>The step most whistleblowers fail to take is the simplest one when confronting a powerful entity: consulting a lawyer.
If only Snowden would have talked to a lawyer, I'm sure he'd be safe in the US right now.
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Doing your homework and having powerful people behind you are orthogonal In the way sifting flour and beating eggs are orthogonal steps in cake making. You need to do both, and not necessarily in any order. > You might think you can get away by playing one political side against the other for your protection and rally support “Sides” are an abstraction. The first rule of power is its quantum are people. You need pe…
>You need to do both How do you do that? >You need people on your side to have power. How do you get them? >The step most whistleblowers fail to take is the simplest one when confronting a powerful entity: consulting a lawyer. If only Snowden would have talked to a lawyer, I'm sure he'd be safe in the US right now.
> How?
This is highly situation dependent.
If you’re blowing the whistle on the British special forces, you’d want to have copious contemporaneous notes referencing where official documents may corroborate your claims.
You’d also want to introduce your claims into the Parliamentary record; first step would be finding an MP who wants to reform (not unmake) the special forces. In this way you can play into ambitious underlings’ promotion dreams while dangling transformation resources for the agency you’re criticising.
> How do you get them?
If you can’t manage the basics of politics, don’t launch a political endeavour. (This is true for whistleblowing and entrepreneurship, commercial and political.)
> If only Snowden would have talked to a lawyer, I'm sure he'd be safe in the US right now
Chelsea Manning is out of jail. And Manning went about her business in about the stupidest way possible.
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#38Western countries should never send their citizens into the heart of darkness.
I will never forget the footage of Serbians chaining Dutch officers to lampposts to act as living shields against NATO airstrikes. The poor bastards were time machined into the dark ages.
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#39When I read about terrible things done in a group like this, my first thought is: would I have done the right thing? I like to think I'm a good person, but these people probably do, too. It sounds like there's something rotten in the culture of the special forces that encouraged or at least overlooked these actions. What would I have done if I had been there? Would I have stood up against people I saw as my brothers…
Is there anything you could blow the whistle on right now? If yes, and you are not blowing the whistle, then then answer is no you could not do the right thing. It also means you did not come forward to do the right thing then either.
If you can’t think of anything that you could blow the whistle on, then chances are you were the one who did wrong and were found out about it.
If neither is the case, then you are either oblivious or you are a snitch who didn’t let anything slide.
Come up with a list of reasons why you did not come forward. Don’t belittle your crimes either.
Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
#40When I read about terrible things done in a group like this, my first thought is: would I have done the right thing? I like to think I'm a good person, but these people probably do, too. It sounds like there's something rotten in the culture of the special forces that encouraged or at least overlooked these actions. What would I have done if I had been there? Would I have stood up against people I saw as my brothers…
Soldiers are not trained to do police work, yet that's what many are asked to do. An informant provides a tip that someone is manufacturing IED's, so soldiers are sent to investigate. They're not trained for that. Worse yet, they're the targets of the crime they're investigating. Police are not typically asked to investigate an attempt on their own lives for good reason. Even with appropriate training and when invest…
I don't buy that, nobody with a shred of humanity shoots handcuffed kids in the back of their heads. Something is wrong with these people as well as with the ones who are protecting them.