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With “blood”, young soldiers should practice murdering civilians
| Reading time: 3 minutes
An Australian soldier searches for a child in southern Afghanistan’s Urusgan province
Quelle: Fairfax Media / Getty Images
An Australian special unit reportedly killed 39 civilians captured in Afghanistan. The revelations are reminiscent of the crimes committed by US soldiers in the Iraqi prison at Abu Ghraib. Apparently, the elite soldiers were barely under control.
reThe investigation lasted more than four years and evaluated 20,000 documents and 25,000 images. A total of 423 witnesses were interviewed. Its results shook across Australia on Thursday: Elite soldiers are said to have killed 39 civilians in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016 and instructed other soldiers to kill unarmed people.
Most of those killed are probably prisoners, so they definitely did not carry a weapon and therefore posed no danger to the soldiers. Furthermore, according to the report, the events were deliberately covered up by placing telephones or weapons on the bodies. These facts clarify the incidents as war crimes. Therefore, they cannot be counted as a fight.
In total, the report identified 25 perpetrators, some of whom are still members of the Australian armed forces. According to this, it is said that the soldiers cut the throats of civilians and their superiors deliberately incited the younger soldiers to execute the prisoners. A process known as “bleeding”. The term is meant to describe how young soldiers shed blood for the first time and kill a person.
The crimes should not have started from the highest command, but rather from the patrol commanders and their “protégés”. These superiors were worshiped almost as “demigods” by the younger soldiers, according to the report, which in turn created an atmosphere that did not allow them to discuss the actions.
The fact that the incidents could be kept quiet for so long is probably also due to the fact that, until now, the special forces have been highly regarded by outsiders, that is, there was a certain “organizational blindness” towards them, such as It is stated in a “Guardian” article. “Small deviations from expected behavior,” such as excessive alcohol consumption, were also tolerated.
Complaints from locals and human rights groups were dismissed as “Taliban propaganda” or as attempts by the population to obtain compensation, according to the report. Major General Paul Brereton, who led the investigation, shared how difficult it was to get accurate information. The special unit is a group with great loyalty to its own peers, immediate superiors, and the unit itself.
Brereton noted that the incident had tarnished the image of the entire Australian armed forces. “We are all weakened,” said the major general on Australian state broadcaster ABC. “Moral authority is an element of the strength of the struggle.” According to Brereton, the Australian government should pay compensation to the families of the victims in Afghanistan before individual cases are tried in Australia.
The shocking report also shocked the Australian government. Even before the results of the investigation in Australia were made public, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison personally called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to apologize.
Partially blackened pages of the report on the war crimes of Australian soldiers
What: REUTERS
Following the phone call, Ghani’s office wrote on Twitter that during the conversation, Morrison “expressed his deepest regret over the misconduct of some Australian troops in Afghanistan and assured the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan that he would investigate and ensure justice” . Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne also apologized to the Afghan people in a separate letter to Ghani.
The scale of the case is reminiscent of exposures of torture and murder by US troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. During the occupation, American troops tortured, raped and murdered inmates there.
