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

15 comments

1. Yet no mention of actual ‘EVIDENCE’ and if this alleged ‘Veteran’ can back up his claim??

   Has he provided anything to the inquiry….no mention of that either??

   Until there’s credible evidence then it’s just an unsubstantiated ‘claim’.

2. I thought part of the point of special forces is that they engage in “special” behaviour to achieve their objectives. I’d be more surprised if they hadn’t committed war crimes.

3. If we want the likes of Russia and Israel to be held accountable for their actions then we ourselves need to accept accountability.

   The statement by David Cameron just doesn’t seem good enough. It is not like he was warned once of this.

   I recall there being a similar story coming out about New Zealand a few years back as well.

   Edit: as a few have said, it is more than likely Australia I was thinking of instead of New Zealand.

4. These stories always shock me, not the events, but the fact no Journalist seemingly has spoken to any Infantry that served in Afghanistan since 2002.

   Pretty much any soldier, who toured in Afghanistan, can tell you about SAS war crimes. I’ve heard *tonnes* of stories over the years since I grew up in a Military town so lots of my friends ex military. “breaking the silence” is a funny way to put it, as former SAS *brag* about this stuff relentlessly.

   >>SAS murder unarmed people in their sleep

   *Wrong*, the “favourite” feeling I’ve heard from many, MANY people, is that SAS would go into a room of people sleeping, put guns to their heads, cover their mouths, *wake them up*, as they come into consciousness, tell them some badass line about how they are going to die, and as the fear and realization seeps into their eyes, finally kill them. This gives the best war boner apparently. I heard this story, *numerous times*, from various people, back in the 2000s.

   Still the best SAS story is from a friend who said on an operation, it was dead silent, night time, they were closing in on target, and suddenly they heard the *predator clicking sound,* Coming from various locations around them, and of course it was SAS just being assholes lol.

5. Reminds me of that exposé about the Navy SEALs/Delta Force ( I forget which name was being used at the time ) that had a lot of interviews with guys between…I think it was 2nd Gulf and then the assassination of Saddam? Been ages since I read anything on it but the cheery way these fellas described “canoeing” dead jihadis was pretty gross.

6. Yeah no shit. They have committed countless war crimes but it’s all hidden and the British public will pretend nothing happens

7. We wonder why the taliban enjoy such support, and the answer is we handed it to them on a silver platter

8. >”If it looked like a shooting could represent a breach of the rules of conflict, you’d get a phone call from the legal adviser or one of the staff officers in HQ. They’d pick you up on it and help you to clarify the language. ‘Do you remember someone making a sudden move?’ ‘Oh yeah, I do now.’ That sort of thing. It was built into the way we operated.”

   Before the comments of “oh it’s a mistake in heated moments”; this isn’t that. This is deliberate rot and a culture thats encouraging worse performance in the field, just to harden a culture of machismo. Lugging about fake guns and spending extra time on scene to set up staged photos makes these troops less effective.

   This isn’t the ‘hard choice’ militaries breaking the law is portrayed as. With this being effective, not committing war crimes and not radicalisng the local populace seems to all go hand in hand. And we toss it all away… For what?

9. The war crimes themselves are merely a symptom. The real problem was putting our men into a position where they had to wage a decades long open ended counter insurgency in a foreign country that clearly never wanted us there with no measurable conditions for victory or defeat.

   We already knew from as recently as Northern Ireland that the longer a guerrilla is waged, the uglier, messier and more traumatised and depraved the participants get no matter the training, professionalism or morals… and this was on British territory against people that were linguistically and culturally nearly identical. So imagine how much worse the dehumanisation and the psychological rot mustve become with these operators fighting for years in an alien country thousands of miles away that shares absolutely no values or commonality with their own with no end in sight.

   We have centuries of literature and whole genres of films about how dragged out low intensity conflicts with blurred lines and deniability can turn the best into monsters and yet we still have to feign shock and surprise when our men end up going postal exactly as predicted.

   This will end up like the Australians, a few men get singled out and hung to dry, the media and the public gets the spectacle of ‘justice’ to feel good about themselves while the likes of Blair, Brown and Cameron who wouldve been briefed on all that was going on and couldve pulled the plug at any moment get to carry on life as usual.

10. You teach young men to kill, and put them into hell on earth, a significant portion will become monsters. It happens in ever single war.

    The individuals involved here need prosecuted. Individual responsibility has to come first. But, let’s be clear, this is what war does. And this is one of the many reasons why war should only ever be a last resort.

11. Horrible and the reporting has a dismal ring of truth to it.

    The Australians and Americans had similar problems.

12. Gave that a good read through.

    I think there is a definite disconnect between what people think the Special Forces are and who they really are.

    The comment about them having psychopathic behavior was a bit of a “well yeah duh”. Soldiers in general are trained to kill, it’s a big part of their entire existence and purpose. So special forces you are essentially taking the best of these and generally proven and elevating them to a much higher role where the expectation of killings is pretty much guaranteed.

    The idea of the noble super soldier is just not grounded in reality. The higher they are within active combat roles then the more ruthless they are.

    It’s like surgeons, pilots, ceos are often egotistical, narcissistic and psychopath. It’s the kind of traits that makes people successful within these fields.

    I think the main issue is that the SAS and SBS are used far too liberally. I think that the reduction in forces size and capabilities has made us much more dependent in situations you don’t want them in. Like using a tank to deliver a pizza.

    Also with decrease in budget and size the amount of overview and the ability to reign people in has become much more difficult. Too few high quality candidate’s stick it out for the bad pay and terrible.

    Non of it is an excuse and they should be punished related to their crimes but I feel we expect far too much from state sanctioned serial killers. While we also ignore a lot of the larger issues about the military that means it lacks capabilities and the ability you carry out in-depth administrative work.

13. > Panorama can also reveal for the first time that then Prime Minister David Cameron was repeatedly warned during his tenure that UK Special Forces were killing civilians in Afghanistan.

    This from the article probably deserves to be more prominent. The upper echelons of government including the Prime Minister were aware of potential war crimes committed by British forces and it appears they didn’t take much action.

14. Disturbing story. I guess I was brought up thinking the British SAS were more honourable than this.

15. The PR that special forces have received in pop culture over the decades has been a resounding success given this is a shock.

    War is hell and generations of Western politicians have been more than happy to use SF as deniable hit squads to further their own aims. I’m sure some guys will be hung out to dry for this and then everyone will congratulate themselves for a job well done bringing the monsters to account.

    Spare a thought then for the nameless thousands killed as collateral since those wars began who will never get this same self serving justice. Blair, Bush, and those who came after may not have pulled the trigger personally but their hands are every bit as bloody.

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