Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 89 posts

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#71

Post by dmos62 »

oaththrowaway wrote: post #16
dmos62 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you read the article. > "They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age." No Western government (or whatever you meant by government system) treats anyone like that, and such behaviour should absolutely surprise everyone.

> "No Western government (or whatever you meant by government system) treats anyone like that, and such behaviour should absolutely surprise everyone." Clearly not

You're right. I commented too hastily.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#72

Post by pinkmuffinere »

ashoeafoot wrote: post #63
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that’s crazy, the _whistleblower_ and one other person were tried and convicted. Essentially just punishing the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime, not the many that committed it and stayed silent. :(

They did not stay silent . They bragged about warcrimes openly on a podcast. Persecute the murderous fuckers hard and fast, but not publicly. This affair cooking up smells to much like another russian anti colonial sentiment cooking op.

Can you share a link about the podcast? I’d be interested to learn more.

From the Wikipedia page, it does indeed appear that the “whistleblower“ is no hero. He was whistleblowing over-scrutiny-of-military-personnel. He wasn’t whistleblowing the _murders_, but almost the opposite! Horrible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McBride_(whistleblower)

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#73

Post by moomin »

beloch wrote: post #33
huhkerrf wrote: post #21

When 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…

UK military has way more training on de-escalation than US police…

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#75

Post by rightbyte »

nradov wrote: post #62
rightbyte wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not trained for that. Not even special forces?

Are you asking specifically about the US Army Special Forces, or special operations in general? In either case they typically don't have much training in law enforcement. Special Forces do have extensive training on building relationships with locals, which can be helpful with investigations and intelligence gathering. There are also Military Police trained in law enforcement. They tend to deal more with force protec…

I think I meant UK special forces. I would expect them to have better trigger discipline and discipline in general. And it would be somewhat surprising if they didn't practice "search and not destroy" quite alot for WoT.

Then again the whole ordeal lacked in ... many things.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#76

Post by ashoeafoot »

suraci wrote: post #64
ashoeafoot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not stay silent . They bragged about warcrimes openly on a podcast. Persecute the murderous fuckers hard and fast, but not publicly. This affair cooking up smells to much like another russian anti colonial sentiment cooking op.

russian？

Thats how they recruit- stir up anti-western sentiments by getting western self flaggelation conversations going . You allow the resulting volunteers/ dhijhadis / freedom fighters in as part of some chechyan warlords entourage and throw them into a colonial war in ukraine, where the Afghanistan war is just another tuesday in the Russian army .

Same playbook since forever. Those anti-gaza protest are going to give birth to radicalized cells too. Its free fighters, the wests open discussions just another self radicalisation recruitment platform.

Beats paying gig workers: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-new-weapon-child-s...

Im all for dragging the whole shebang through all the mud. The politicians who parked the war aimlessly , against a non existing country. The officers and media who went along, the soldiers that filtered through and the psychopaths that situation called for. But im against providing the anti western coalition (quatar/teheran/moscow/bejing) ressources.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#77

Post by franktankbank »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #70
defrost wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a nod to an actual reality that's stranger than you imagine ... > the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime is considerably arse backwards. To scratch the surface of that: McBride had previously raised concerns within the Australian Defence Force about the dangers of increasingly restrictive rules of engagement and the nature of investigations into members of the special forces. The ABC found evidence of…

Wow that is insane, thanks for linking the Wikipedia page. To summarize, the thing he was whistleblowing was over-scrutiny of military personnel actions! He wasn’t whistleblowing the murders! That’s crazy and horrible.

Devils advocate and not necessarily McBride's argument but... does the "blooding" happen if "throwdowns" weren't already commonplace due to the over-oversight? Normalization of deviance creating a path for worse things? Once you are over there and everyone knows they have to do some amount of illegal shit its kind of difficult because the line is already crossed, where is the new line? Noone knows. I've seen this on much less high stakes scales and its a potent source of crazy-making.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#78

Post by _zamorano_ »

WatchDog wrote: post #54

So Australian and now UK special forces have been implicated in similar war crimes. How is it that US special forces haven’t been implicated in similar war crimes? Does the US have a genuinely better culture, or are they just less accountable? People like Chris Kyle are treated as heroes, but it seems unlikely that he got so many kills by following the rules of engagement properly.

I don't know about the movie, but in his own book it's quite clear he's a moron that sees anyone in the enemy lines as less than human and feels nothing after killing.

And, in many instances back home, he also see many fellow americans as worthless.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#79

Post by buyucu »

huhkerrf wrote: post #21

When 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…

the easiest way of doing the right thing is not enlisting in evil organizations.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#80

Post by tartoran »

pyuser583 wrote: post #49
tartoran wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People used to murder their own children undesired a children as a form of population control. It was normal and expected. Murdering defeated enemies, and their children was equally normal and expected. We live in such a wonderful age that we can easily forget many “unthinkable” things are the default of humanity.

That doesn't excuse current behavior. We want to live in a world where that does not happen. Do you not?

Also in this case it wasn't expected of these special forces to behave this way, they take the liberty to commit atrocities out of pure pleasure.

Post reply on HN