SEAL Team 6 accused of committing war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq

[Drakken]

allegations soldiers did things like stomp on the skulls of dead people shouldn't be treated lightly. sometimes, sensationalism is needed to muster enough reaction for change

[viper37]

I read the article.

Honestly...it mostly struck me as something a civilian would write, not at all understanding war.

I have zero, ZERO doubt that things occurred during military operations of the various SEAL teams that were technical or even material violations of the laws of war, in that those laws are in many ways written in a manner that result in violations that are more or less either routine, or at least not that material.

Shooting someone who is already dead? OK. That is a pretty shitty thing to do, and clearly falls under prohibited behavior. Is it something to write a sensational headline like "SEAL TEAM 6 COMMITS WARCRIMES!!!"? I don't think so, since the headline implies something that goes well beyond soldiers engaging in mutiliation of already dead people. Mutilating dead people is certainly a matter of military discipline that needs to be handled, but can and should be handled by the chain of command of the unit as part of their desire to see the unit operating at peak effectiveness.

This strikes me as straight up sensationalism. It basically amounts to noting that war sucks, and people in constant combat do shit they should not, and likely normally would not, and yet is almost certainly inevitable. It is an excuse to run the headline, but there isn't much "there" there.

the article mentionned attacking a civilian convoy, shooting unarmed people, and decapitating a civilian.
I agree with you about the rest, but the first part is really troubling.

[The Brain]

WHERE IS ALL BEGAN

Where I stopped reading.

[LaCroix]

berkut, aren't you a civilian?

[grumbler]

WHERE IS ALL BEGAN

Where I stopped reading.

And this is where I stopped wri

[Berkut]

I read the article.

Honestly...it mostly struck me as something a civilian would write, not at all understanding war.

I have zero, ZERO doubt that things occurred during military operations of the various SEAL teams that were technical or even material violations of the laws of war, in that those laws are in many ways written in a manner that result in violations that are more or less either routine, or at least not that material.

Shooting someone who is already dead? OK. That is a pretty shitty thing to do, and clearly falls under prohibited behavior. Is it something to write a sensational headline like "SEAL TEAM 6 COMMITS WARCRIMES!!!"? I don't think so, since the headline implies something that goes well beyond soldiers engaging in mutiliation of already dead people. Mutilating dead people is certainly a matter of military discipline that needs to be handled, but can and should be handled by the chain of command of the unit as part of their desire to see the unit operating at peak effectiveness.

This strikes me as straight up sensationalism. It basically amounts to noting that war sucks, and people in constant combat do shit they should not, and likely normally would not, and yet is almost certainly inevitable. It is an excuse to run the headline, but there isn't much "there" there.

the article mentionned attacking a civilian convoy,

Potentially a warcrime depending on what exactly happened, more likely simply a tragic mistake. Which happen in war, all the damn time.

Certainly worth investigating, to hopefully make sure it is not repeated if at all possible.

But the fact that a civilian convoy is attacked is a warcrime only if it can be shown that the attack was intentional, and the target was known to be civilian, or there was callous disregard for its status.

But there are means in place to deal with all of those possibilities, and nothing in the article leads me to believe that those provisions are not adequate.

My point here being that articles like this tend to imply, in my view, that the simple fact that a tragedy occurs is by itself adequate evidence that some kind of crime has happened. In wartime, that simply is not the case.

shooting unarmed people,

See above. Shooting unarmed people happens in war all the time. Not a crime unless you knew they were non-combatants, and/or specifically targeted them, and/or should some callous disregard for their status.

And again, there are means in place to investigate and handle these incidents. Article, again, implies that simply because the incident happened, it is proof that there is a problem. That is only true if we presume that anyone, including Seal Team 6, can wage war in some perfect manner that never involves civilians getting killed. That has never been true, and certainly is not true now. Civlians die in war - the onus on civilized nations engaged in war is to minimize that as much as reasonable possible.

Before you read this article, you knew that during the Afghan war, a shitload of innocent people died, many at the hands of the "good guys". This article just illuminate some specific incidents.

and decapitating a civilian.

...after they were already dead, if it happened at all. That is an important distinction...especially given what is going on with ISIS....

[Jacob]

Definitely, if it is systemic.

On the same page there. I guess the question is whether this is systemic. From what I've read elsewhere that's the primary concern.

I will note however that the way to CoC handles it might not align well with civilian sensibilities.

I think it's less about civilian sensibilities and more about the rules of war; my understanding is that those are of concern to a significant number of military sensibilities as well.

[Berkut]

Definitely, if it is systemic.

On the same page there. I guess the question is whether this is systemic. From what I've read elsewhere that's the primary concern.

I will note however that the way to CoC handles it might not align well with civilian sensibilities.

I think it's less about civilian sensibilities and more about the rules of war; my understanding is that those are of concern to a significant number of military sensibilities as well.

I think that article was very specifically designed to generate offense in civilian sensibilities. Most military people would look at the actual facts presented and find most of them rather not particularly significant (the most significant being the mistaken attack on a non-military target itself).

[MadImmortalMan]

Mutilating dead people is certainly a matter of military discipline that needs to be handled, but can and should be handled by the chain of command of the unit as part of their desire to see the unit operating at peak effectiveness.

Every example I can think of where the dead were mutilated it backfired. You would think the only reason for that would be as a deterrent, but it always just makes the enemy fight harder.

Except maybe in the case of ISIS, where I think one of their goals is to make their enemies fight them more.

[Berkut]

Mutilating dead people is certainly a matter of military discipline that needs to be handled, but can and should be handled by the chain of command of the unit as part of their desire to see the unit operating at peak effectiveness.

Every example I can think of where the dead were mutilated it backfired. You would think the only reason for that would be as a deterrent, but it always just makes the enemy fight harder.

Except maybe in the case of ISIS, where I think one of their goals is to make their enemies fight them more.

Yeah, I don't pretend to understand that outside of just being super fucking pissed off and lashing out. IE, a purely emotive effort to fulfill a purely internal need, rather than some effort to influence those you are fighting.

I don't really understand the emotive desire to mutilate the dead either, but then, I've never been in combat, so I am fine with knowing that I cannot really know.

[CountDeMoney]

I don't really understand the emotive desire to mutilate the dead either, but then, I've never been in combat, so I am fine with knowing that I cannot really know.

Some cultures have their reasons, some good and some bad.  Ours ascribes a certain dignity to the human body in death, and a violation of that is a particularly heinous act.

[Alcibiades]

Those enlisted officers are out of control.

[Alcibiades]

FAKE NEWS

SEAL Team 6's Red Team were travelling over Takur Ghar, a high mountain in the Arma Mountains in southeastern Afghanistan in March 2002.

Al-Qaeda fighters were on the mountain top and as the SEALS got ready to fight, Roberts fell about three metres from a helicopter. He was stranded and the helicopter was shot at by al-Qaeda fighters.

According to The Intercept, the helicopter couldn't return for Roberts until two hours later, by that time he was dead and had been shot in the head at close range by the enemy shortly after he fell out the helicopter.

SEALS later looked at a predator drone and saw video of an enemy fighter trying to decapitate Roberts' head after he died.

If people remember the very early stages of the war, this was one of the very first US casualties, and he the guy that fell out of the back of the Chinook when they were EVAC'ing other warfighters on that mountain.  They knew he was taken away and they knew he was subsequently executed.  The only thing that wasn't reported at the time is that it was the SEALs.

I've seen the imagery from this, it absolutely did happen.  Fortunately he was killed very quickly after being taken.

A JTAC was also separated during this operation and nearly captured after he was left for dead...

[katmai]

Those enlisted officers are out of control.

maybe the privates can fire em!

[DGuller]

I think it's inevitable that the good guys sometime somewhere will respond to atrocities with atrocities.  When you get down to it, the threat of retaliation in kind is the biggest motivator for not engaging in atrocities in the first place.  I'd like to believe that engaging in atrocities all on its own is a self-defeating act, so ignoring them is not only morally right but also the most effective response, but that could just be wishful thinking.