 LOS ANGELES - An investigation undertaken by a US newspaper has found that US special forces in Afghanistan may have been responsible for the deaths of two detainees in 2003. The Los Angeles Times said on Sunday its probe focusing on a 10-member Green Berets team from the Alabama National Guard, has also determined that several other detainees may have been badly beaten or tortured.
| No word on whether the LA Times has found any instances of prisoner abuse by the Taliban. |
One victim, an unarmed peasant, was shot to death while being held for questioning after a fierce firefight, the report said. The other, an 18-year-old Afghan army recruit, died after being interrogated at the base. Descriptions of his injuries were consistent with severe beatings and other abuse, according to the paper.
A member of the special forces team told The Times his unit held a meeting after the teen’s death to coordinate their stories should an investigation arise. ‘Everybody on the team had knowledge of it,’ the unnamed soldier is quoted as saying. ‘You just don’t talk about that stuff in the special forces community. What happens downrange stays downrange. Nobody wants to get anybody in trouble. Just sit back, and hope it will go away.’
The two fatalities were different from scores of other questionable deaths in US custody because they were successfully concealed, not just from the American public but from the militaryÂ’s chain of command and legal authorities, The Times said.
The deaths came to light after an investigation by The Times and a nonprofit educational organization, the Crimes of War Project, led the Army to open criminal inquiries into the incidents. No charges have so far been filed.
The 'Crimes of War Project' is, according to their website, "a collaboration of journalists, lawyers and scholars dedicated to raising public awareness of the laws of war and their application to situations of conflict." Support comes from a number of major foundations (Ford, MacArthur, Knight, Carnegie) as well as the Open Society Institute, part of the Soros Foundation network. Support also comes from the JEHT Foundation (Justice, Equality, Human Dignity, and Tolerance). They give money away to all sorts of progressive organizations. They get more money from the 'Funding Exchange', "a unique partnership of activists and donors dedicated to building a permanent institutional and financial base to support progressive social change".
Get the picture? |
The Times said it has since reviewed thousands of pages of internal military records showing that prisoner abuse by special forces units was more common in Afghanistan than previously acknowledged.
| Because they found two, repeat, two instances of claimed abuse. |
In one November 2002 correspondence, a high-ranking special operations official said military police were detecting ‘an extremely high level of physical abuse’ of detainees transferred from special forces field bases to a prison in Bagram, the report said.
| I'll bet that's true. We weren't and aren't about to put up with any nonsense from the Talibs and AQ hardboyz. And unlike the Left, the Green Berets understand just how dangerous these guys are. |
An operations officer with the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, the command supervising special forces teams in Afghanistan, complained in a memorandum that prisoners were being held for so long without charges that it ‘may be implied as kidnapping, a federal crime.’
| Or holding prisoners in a war situation, which happens from time to time. |
The paper said that in early 2003, the chief special forces intelligence officer in Afghanistan warned in a note to the task force commander, Colonel James Champion, and his top aides: ‘As you are all aware, alleged assaults and kidnapping [have] been occurring for quite some time. Again, I want to emphasize, this is not isolated.’ |