Afghanistan: Digging Out the Bullets

The U.S. has proved time and again that it has some of the most courageous and dutiful military soldiers in the world, but also that it has truly incompetent ones, as well.

Although the U.S. claims some special advantages over other countries, it is not immune to the scourge of recruitment sampling, the dreaded bad seeds. For the Pentagon to improve its reputation, it will have to learn better how to distinguish trusted American leaders and heroes from the worrisome wild cards, at all levels.

Yesterday the Times of London ran a story by Jerome Starkey, reporting "U.S. special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan."

No doubt combat is incredibly, soul-wrenchingly painful and difficult to begin with. But there are some situations which separate well-intentioned security men from the irresponsible.

Not assuming the story is true, but for the sake of facing the challenge, here's some analysis.

According to the Khataba story, which is based on local Afghan investigator accounts, NATO has admitted responsibility for a special forces strike that led to the shooting deaths of a police officer, his brother, a teenage girl, and two pregnant women.

Originally, NATO reported that the forces found the women already shot to death when it came to seize the men. Meanwhile, witnesses to the shootings say that there were 25 guests and 3 musicians having a party for the naming of a newborn child when the forces came in.

With overwhelming evidence that there had been a party, and that the women's bodies were later found in a hallway by the kitchen, the survivors ask why anyone would have a party with dead bodies already laying there?

Afghan investigators also found that after the shooting, someone had pulled the bullets out of the women's bodies (!), cleaned the wounds with alcohol to remove any traceable bullet or burn mark, and even plastered and painted over bullet holes. Now NATO is admitting that at least part of this is true.

Yet again, NATO and the U.S., sometimes claiming to have moral authority over the conduct of war, are finding their security operations tarnished, even ruined, in the battle arena because of bad seeds. And such bad seeds can do horrible damage, not the least of which is botching a raid.

Although my time in the military was limited to stateside reserve duty, I do try to filter any challenges of military conduct through the lens of what I learned among military friends back then, as well as my times of working as a civilian with local communities in war zones.

At Marine Corps boot camp and infantry school, and throughout other trainings, there was always the talk about how to limit the influence of the bad seeds, the ten percent, the "shit-baggers," "fuck-ups," and wild cards. But what was surprising was the way military administrators sorted the group; perhaps it's similar to what's happening today.

A good friend of mine was kicked out of boot camp because he broke down from stress at the top of a forty-foot rope line. Another got washed out, with a furious scene, because he couldn't lose weight fast enough. And yet another friend of mine came up to some of us when we finally had our hands on live ammo and said, "Just watch. I hate everyone of these guys. I'm going to blow them all away." He stayed in.

At infantry school, a guy tripped out of line on a live fire exercise so that when he righted himself from the ground and started firing a machine gun at the target, he shot the dirt up near a colleague. He learned his lesson, was very guilty about it, but then five men in the platoon bashed his head in with a rifle butt to teach him a lesson.

I do not blame the U.S. military for that at all. But what happened afterward was telling. The man of error with the broken skull was ordered to drop charges against his attackers. The platoon sergeant then threatened any Marines turning in evidence or witness to the attack with bureaucracy. The attackers graduated normally without as much as a lecture, while the guy with the broken skull missed graduation and lied confused in the hospital ward for two months.

We have one of the greatest militaries that has ever existed, but there are still too many pockets remaining — small pockets, but important — which continue to allow morally questionable Marines and soldiers to act inappropriately in combat.

Let me be very specific here. Although I despise war and strongly believe more can be done to prevent wars before they happen, I understand the complicated nature of war and the difficult decisions the military has to make. My focus here is not on men and women in combat. Nor is it on whether a Marine curses, or hits the bars after duty, or plays pranks, or whatever.

It's about the pockets of military sub-culture which promotes "violence of action" above all else. In these pockets, someone who's gay or smokes marijuana once at a party is scorned and discharged, while someone who shoots cows, beats his girlfriend, and plays Russian roulette are only counseled.

We don't know what happened in Khataba. But we wonder whether highly trained, very expensive, and incredibly prepared special forces soldiers intentionally raided a live family party, shot five people, then after having realized their mistake, went back to cover it up rather than reporting it in. We also wonder whether these men understood that nothing would hurt the NATO or Afghan causes more than accidentally killing civilians than covering it up in such a violating way.

Photo credit: U.S. Army (Special Forces in Helmand)