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Saturday, November 21, 2020

This is not an initiation for an elite unit...

It's a felony.

Most elite groups (military, police, university or high school sports) have formal and informal entry requirements. An American soldier must pass the Special Forces Qualification Course and earn the Green Beret. He will then be assigned to a Special Forces Group, but his fellow soldiers in the group will have "other" qualifications for him.

Frat house hazing is good fun. However, if this is true, it's no joke. It's murder.

Australia reveals slaughter of helpless Afghans

MELBOURNE, Australia — They were the elite of the elite among this nation’s soldiers, with the confidence and competitiveness to match. But on the battlefields of Afghanistan, their win-at-all-costs attitude devolved into a “self-centered warrior culture” that encouraged killing helpless Afghans and covering it up.

Commanders ordered junior soldiers to execute prisoners so they could record their first “kill.” Adolescents, farmers and other noncombatants were shot dead in circumstances clearly outside the heat of battle.

Superior officers created such a godlike aura around themselves that troops dared not question them, even as 39 Afghans were unlawfully killed.

These are among the findings of battlefield misconduct released Thursday in a public accounting by the Australian military in a rare admission of abuses that often remain hidden on the battlefield...

...The inspector general’s inquiry, which examined the period from 2005 to 2016, stopped short of calling the killings war crimes. But the highly redacted report singles out “possibly the most disgraceful episode in Australia’s military history” and calls for the criminal investigation of 19 soldiers.

The country’s military chief, Gen. Angus Campbell, said he accepted the findings and would eliminate an elite unit at the center of the investigation. The report also recommends that the Australian government compensate the families of the Afghan victims...

...The investigation was initiated in 2015 by Jeff Sengelman, the commander of the special operations forces at the time, who commissioned a confidential “cultural review...”

..Disturbing revelations of unlawful killings, “competition killing” and “blood lust” prompted the army chief in 2016 to request that the inspector general conduct a formal inquiry..."


Again, if there is probable cause, present these men to a court martial and upon conviction, punish them. In my years, I’ve learned to not accept what’s in a paper at face value. But if true, this is bad. A disgrace to the men who have served in those units, and Australia in general.

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