Posted on 09/26/2006 8:02:21 AM PDT by 2banana
GARDEZ, Afghanistan — After completing their deployment to this remote firebase, the Green Berets of ODA 2021 left for home covered in glory.
The 10-member Special Forces team, part of the Alabama National Guard, returned to their families in the spring of 2003 with tales to tell of frenzied firefights and narrow escapes.
Its commander had nominated each of his men — as well as himself — for medals for valor. The team's performance was heralded as evidence that the Guard could play as equals with the regular Army in the war on terrorism.
But the team also had come home with secrets.
Apparently unknown to Army officials, two detainees had died in the team's custody in separate incidents during the unit's final month in eastern Afghanistan. Several other detainees allege that they were badly beaten or tortured while held at the base in Gardez.
...
Most of the bases singled out by the agency were under the control of National Guardsmen with the Alabama-based 20th Special Forces Group. The compound at Gardez, then occupied by ODA 2021, was portrayed as one of the worst. Detainees there alleged they were beaten, kicked, immersed in icy water and deprived of sleep for days at a time.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
...deprived of sleep for days at a time??! Oh, the horror, the horror ....
Too bad the Times doesn't care as much about those barbarians beheading or blowing up people.
At least they won't be getting Geneva Convention "rights".
Oh, let's see - beaten, kicked, immersed in icy water, deprived of sleep for days at a time. Sounds like what I'd like to do to Taliban Johnny Walker Lind just for starters. Too bad those guys didn't get hold of him while they were there.
And of course, "detainees" would NEVER, EVER lie!!!
But of course, the word of a Taliban is worth so much more then the word of an American soldier.
Why should we believe anything they say before executives, managers, editors, and reporters have served time in jail to prove due penance for their crimes.
YOU ARE SO RIGHT!
They deserve to go out of business.
Thank you
They Support Our Troops by Betraying Our Troops
My computer crashed big time and couldn't get on Free Republic. I was emotionally beaten and couldn't sleep for days. I kicked myself unmercilessly for trying to fix it myself and ruined it completely. Had to get another computer. Ice water? Naw. I stayed away from water and didn't bathe for days and let my beard grow for a couple of weeks. I survived and here I am, even though I didn't eat enough to keep a bird alive during the period. My only complaint is that my girlfriend wouldn't put her panties on my head because I was so grumpy and had B.O.
Now, what was the detainees complaining about?
Which they might want to pay attention to, since the Paki gov't. has just basically surrendered to the Taliban and Al-Q'aeda on the other side of the mountains from Gardez.
Operationally, this will release beefy formations of Taliwhackers to cross the mountains and attack these SF outposts. "A Silence in the Mountains" indeed -- junior-league Left-wing, guerrilla-theater dramatics, recalling both Rachel Carson (Silent Spring) and Tacitus ("solitudines faciunt et pacem appellant"). If you read the whole article, there's gunplay aplenty. Silence, my ass. Self-consequent liberal wankers.
The Times won't get it until those barbarians fly a plane into their building.
Oh, and did I mention that, among the surrender capitulations signed by the Paki government (Musharraf may fall in weeks or months, and the Moo's get their hands on the nuclear arsenal at last -- think about that for a while!), were stipulations that the Paks abandon-in-place their remaining armories and weapons, that they release immediately 2500 Taliban/AQ prisoners held by the Paks, and that they turn over a substantial sum of cash?
Or that the releasees -- who are free in the mountains already and reconstituting themselves -- include several of the murderers of correspondent Daniel Pearl?
The Times is so naive and so are the subscribers.
They may get it when one of those Pak nuclear weapons takes out everything between Chavez Ravine and LAX.
Liberals are traitors.
It will take their dying moment for a liberal this committed to hating our military to get it.
Sounds like SEAL training to me!
And people talk about the ends of history summoning themselves. I'll bet that's where the Greeks got the idea for tragedy.
You're right.
<snort>
Which, of course, is untrue. The ODA commander was recommended by his company or FOB commander for any award or medal. But what usually happens is that this commander tells the ODA commander to write something up as he is usually too busy.
Just another liberal swipe at our military...
My e-mail reply to Kevin Sack LA Times:
Kevin, what a terrible piece of reporting. You are on an agenda and it sickens me. You use anecdotel
statements, heresay statements and out of context statements, by team membes, to create an illusion of war hungry baby killers (see Vietnam). I was in A-stan with Special Forces 2003-2004. I interrogated prisoners and cared for prisoners: including suicide bombers fresh in from Pakistan. In the annals of warfare, no POW's have been more humanely treated. We had nothing to hide and infact, were interrogated by a commission from Army HQ, Pentagon. The rules of PUC detention, interrogation were clear and adhered to, albeit with disgust sometimes. I was a police detective, in civilian life, and had more leverage interrogating a homicide suspect, than I had with vile , determined terrorists. I was treated much worse in survivial school interrogation, than these terorists were. Thing is, you do not want to acknowledge that the lines between terrorists and criminals are non-existent in A stan or Iraq for that matter. Are there rouge individuals in the US Army? Of course. But to think that entire teams and bases, including Gardez, which had other Govt. agencies and conventional units assigned, would conspire to conceal the horrific mistreatment you describe is preposterous. Not one word in your hit piece describing the good treatment given to these detainees, such as Halal meals, Prayer mats, hygiene better than they have ever known in the backwaters of A-stan etc. Yeah, you might get your Pulitzer, you have made your Faustian pact, but somehow, some day, I pray you will be
humbled by events and squirm and plea for protection from the men, whom you have maligned.
"...deprived of sleep for days at a time??! Oh, the horror, the horror ...."
That happened to me in college crammin'. I oughta sue.
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