[Peace-discuss] War Stories

[David Johnson]

I worked with a Carpenter friend of mine today and yesterday, who has a new son in law who is in the U.S. Army and has so far been in Iraq and Afganistan and will be going back to Afganisatn within the next 6 months.

Anyway, the stories of his experiences he shared with my friend are very intersting.

When he was in Iraq three years ago ( 2006-2007 ) he said that they trained a local Iraqi police force in a small city and the U.S.
military gave this Iraqi police force all sorts of advanced weapons and vehicles.
This guy's commanding officer found out that the Iraqi's had sold the equipment on the black market and pocketed the money, so the commander ordered his troops to " teach these Iraqis a lesson ".
So this guy and his unit ( following specific orders ) went to the Iraqi police station one night, broke-in, and killed every police officer at the station. They then systematicly hunted down those out and about in the town on duty patroling and killed them too. Then the remainder, they went to their individual homes, kicked in their doors and pulled them out of bed in front of their wives and children and murdered them as well.

When he was in Afganistan, on three different occasions, they had run off the Taliban in a certain area and had discovered poppy fields.
They contacted their commanding officer via radio to get permision to burn the poppy fields and each time they were told ; " Do Not destroy the poppy fields " ! "You are to guard them until the CIA arrives and turn it over to them." ????

Is this typical of American foreign policy in action ?

Back in the 1980's Jesse Jackson called American foreign policy " gangster diplomacy ".

Well that seems appropriate, because when I heard these stories, my first thought was ; " Is this our government's deliberate policy or an episode of Gangland " ?

David Johnson
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