Article in German journal "Stern"

[Schmedlap]

The story is entirely believable in my opinion, including the "begging" part (I assume he was interrogated meanwhile, but that was uninteresting for the author).

I think it's believable because it's not surprising me.
This kind of stuff is normal in war, especially in a war that has been raging for many years. War brutalizes people, it's been known for ages.

Fuchs,

I understand what you're saying. In a nutshell, people occasionally do very horrible things in war. But I think you are overlooking that some elements of the article make zero sense regardless of the intent of the individuals involved. In particular, silenced rifles for an air assault raid on a building? That makes no sense. First off, what is the value of silencing your gunfire if you lose the element of surprise immediately upon your arrival? Once inside the building, the silencer would extend the length of the barrel, making it more difficult to maneuver in the building and increase the odds of a malfunction (for example, if you strike the side of the silencer on a wall or doorway, this is more problematic than if you strike the end of a muzzle). This makes about as much sense as a unit opting to carry shotguns in lieu of rifles for a movement to contact. The assertion that this detail in the story is "BS" is not based upon the morality of the actors. It is based upon a straight-face test of, "is anybody really that stupid?" Certainly no professional force is that stupid, especially if it arrives at and then leaves the scene in two extremely loud Chinooks. Do you see why that particular piece of information does not make any sense? That is not to reject the article in its entirety, but just to highlight that some of the information in the article is highly suspect.

As I noted earlier, I do not reject the possibility that some atrocity occurred. I've had tasks associated with the mitigation of black SOF in Iraq dumped onto my lap before. There were at least a few occasions when they were, in my opinion, overly reckless. But we should temper our leaps to judgment by looking at each fact, rather than the story as a whole. We do not need to believe or reject the article in its entirety. We can recognize that some elements of the article may be believable and some are not. I see some believable elements of the German article, but see much of it as obvious fabrication.

In regard to the "IO" angle, the elements that I regard as obvious fabrication would most likely be seen by most Americans as "likely fabrication" so I don't think this article is all that troubling. It will appeal to people who already hold very skewed negative views of the US military. It is preaching to that choir, isolated in its echo chamber. For those who are indifferent or hold no strong opinions or who are predisposed to assuming no ill intent on the part of our Soldiers (which, thankfully, is still the vast majority of Americans), this will be perceived as just another crackpot article, assuming that anyone even notices it (which is pretty unlikely).

[jmm99]

stuck in my craw as well. But, since I didn't know what it might mean to a Brit, I found its Wiki:

The Murder Mile was an informal nickname for Ledra Street, in Nicosia, Cyprus. It was called thus by British forces during the EOKA campaign of the late 1950s, due to the hazards presented to patrolling British troops by nationalist fighters.

The term has since been used to describe various dangerous areas, normally characterised by high crime, such as the streets surrounding Lower and Upper Clapton Roads in Hackney in East London, or a section of North Belfast in Northern Ireland. It is mentioned in this context in the Elvis Costello song Oliver's Army.

So, translating from the Brit:

The US Army is a [hard row to hoe (or a tough walk)] away from either being the best or the most professional military organisation on the planet.

I'll take that as Wilf's meaning (which is another thread).

In the present context (where US troops are being accused of murder), "murder mile" was a poor choice of wording for a US audience unfamiliar with Brit slang.

[jmm99]

the Stern article of 2 Apr (?) is not the article to analyze. The article to analyze is the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) report of 16 Apr 2009, which I probably should have discussed more fully in post #4.

The problem with discussing this particular case is that the evidence is one-sided. What we have here is a problem in Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH), where the Golden Rule is:

Analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH) requires an analyst to explicitly identify all the reasonable alternatives and have them compete against each other for the analyst's favor, rather than evaluating their plausibility one at a time.

In this case, ACH (whether formal or informal) requires two sets of evidence - one each for the conflicting hypotheses. We have one (the IWPR report), but require the after-action reports and reviews for any reasonable ACH analysis - or, at least an unclassified executive summary as in the case of the May bombing investigation.

The truth may be ...

from Ken
...the truth is almost certainly somewhere between the poles.

but so far, only one pole has been presented - we may never see the other pole. So goes Infofare vs OpSec.

[Ken White]

Having been accused to my face of being a murderer by Americans, Brits, Canadians, French, Germans and sundry Arabs (Surprisingly, no Iranians -- they're too polite) as well as a few unidentified folks a couple of dozen or so times to the point where anyone joining that crew is no big thing and being aware of the 'Murder Mile' connotation -- plus being firmly convinced that the US Army is not the most professional by a long shot, I didn't take umbrage at the comment.

There are a lot of folks that are more professional than we are -- mostly because they do not have to put up with the US Congress. There are some that are more competent -- not many but a few, very few (competent and professional are not the same thing). There are some things we can do that no one else on the globe today can do and that plus our size and wealth gives us an awesome capability; we can do things others cannot do. However, anyone who thinks we're the most professional or even the most competent is, IMO, not really paying attention to the little things that count.

[Fuchs]

@Schmedlap

M4 carbines ("rifles" for civilians) of SOCOM are afaik often silenced.
This does almost eliminate the muzzle flash (important at night for eyesight, starlight scopes and stealth).
Silencers also reduce the battle noise very much (especially indoors), which improves communication.
The removal of the silencer changes the zero badly (much changed vibration of the barrel = much changed internal ballistics = difference between hit and miss at 250 m). So it's better to have it on all the time than to miss it critically when you need it.
In fact, the indigenous people had little chance of making this up because there was very little if any opportunity of getting familiar with silenced weapons. You don't add elements to a story if you don't know about the elements.

The use of silenced 'rifles' is therefore plausible and realistic.
That's a false BS meter alarm (or if right, then it's a random hit in my opinion.

- - - - -

I believe you're overly optimistic about the "crackpot article" thing.

There are three important regions for this:

1. U.S. : most likely doesn't get published there (at least not prominently)

2. Afghanistan : I've heard so many REALLY crackpot rumours from there that are supposedly well-regarded in much of its population that I'm strongly inclined to believe that such an affair does damage.
A thousand people joining the mourning the very next day reminds me A LOT of "accidental guerrilla" (I wish I would invent such catchy terms).

3. Europe : It got published in a conservative-leaning (conservatives are the most pro-U.S. party here) top 3 weekly political journal. Any more questions?

I have seen dozens of German mass media reports about reckless U.S. forces (and seriously, the U.S. forces have done a lot for that reputation since the Sudan bombing!) and not a single one about how U.S. soldiers are nice, build schools and dams (the usual reports in the early German ISAF years).


This wasn't the only example of horror stories about USSOCOM personnel.
I recall a report years ago when KSK members complained about the situation in Afghanistan. They were suddenly being trained for assassination missions.
One of their assertions in the article was that U.S. troops would and did kill civilians to merely keep their own location secret (it was pretty similar to the "Bravo Two Zero" story incident with the shepherd boy, when things started to go wrong).
That was if I remember correctly a story in Spiegel, a social-democrat biased and the most important German weekly political journal.


The behaviour of U.S. troops in Afghanistan isn't very relevant for our ISAF participation, though. That will exclusively be decided in coalition talks next fall and is therefore subject to political trades. The majority of the Germans (about 55-60%) has always been against our participation in ISAF.

A poor reputation can do significant political long-term damage, though.

[Schmedlap]

M4 carbines ("rifles" for civilians) of SOCOM are afaik often silenced.
This does almost eliminate the muzzle flash (important at night for eyesight, starlight scopes and stealth).
Silencers also reduce the battle noise very much (especially indoors), which improves communication.
The removal of the silencer changes the zero badly (much changed vibration of the barrel = much changed internal ballistics = difference between hit and miss at 250 m). So it's better to have it on all the time than to miss it critically when you need it.

When I was in the school house and when I was a 2LT, those were all reasons that I asserted for why we needed silencers/suppressors. Then my platoon sergeant pulled me aside and explained that, aside from the "no chance in hell" probability that we would get such toys, he went on to explain that while my schoolhouse theories were solid reasoning on paper, they broke apart brilliantly in practice - in particular for the reasons that I cited (barrel length, increased chance of malfunction) and he also pointed out that the issues raised (by you and I, to include noise and muzzle flash reduction) were largely irrelevant, especially when you white light the room and you're using monocular NVDs, rather than the old-school PVS-7s. Lastly, stealth is irrelevant, as I already noted, if one arrives and leaves in loud helicopters.

Again, I am not attacking the article in its entirely - just the tidbits that don't make sense.

[jmm99]

sweeping assertions without any linking to any source, as in this and what follows:

from Fuchs
M4 carbines ("rifles" for civilians) of SOCOM are afaik often silenced.

Have you been a member of an ODA or SMU recently; interviewed team members; been a part of SOCOM, etc., etc. ? - or, if you read that, good manners in discourse suggest you provide the source.

Note Bene: You still haven't supplied a link to the 2 Apr Stern article - some folks here do read German and just might be interested in going to your source.

And, yes, this civilian does know the difference between a carbine and a rifle.

[Fuchs]

The article was printed, but it isn't online. That's not uncommon.
I offered to provide the page in question as a jpg file if someone asked by PM (and actually already did so to the only one who asked).
I could have provided a link to the uploaded scan openly, but such links get deleted by moderator here.

I think adding an "afaik" to my reply was enough to avoid making the statement too "sweeping". It's an expression of not being 100% sure, and therefore less of a "sweeping assertion" than the vast majority of what's being written in this forum.

Besides; ad hominem is useless and always fails to impress me.

[Uboat509]

M4 carbines ("rifles" for civilians) of SOCOM are afaik often silenced.

Not so much. Schmedlap has already discussed the problems with barrel length and the shear pointlessness of using a suppressed weapon after landing on a helicopter.

This does almost eliminate the muzzle flash (important at night for eyesight, starlight scopes and stealth).
Silencers also reduce the battle noise very much (especially indoors), which improves communication.

I have been doing this CQC thing for a while now and I have never even heard of anyone using suppressors for reducing battle noise for communication or reducing muzzle flash.

The removal of the silencer changes the zero badly (much changed vibration of the barrel = much changed internal ballistics = difference between hit and miss at 250 m). So it's better to have it on all the time than to miss it critically when you need it.

Relevant to snipers, not so much to assaulter's going into a building at night where combat ranges are typically 3-7 meters.

In fact, the indigenous people had little chance of making this up because there was very little if any opportunity of getting familiar with silenced weapons. You don't add elements to a story if you don't know about the elements.

The elements they describe could have come from any number of movies.

I could point out more things that peg my BS meter but really, there is nothing in this article that makes it sound like anting more than the type of fact-lite hit pieces that Sarajevo used to post.

SFC W

[jmm99]

post #28
The article was printed, but it isn't online. That's not uncommon.

Not of great importance - but, a non-online newspaper today does strain credulity.

Anyway, Steve (and others), here's a German strudel for you - 10.04.2009, 10:00 Uhr, Krieg in Afghanistan: Strategie des Scheiterns:

Von Christoph Reuter

Zum 60. Jahrestag der Nato präsentierte US-Präsident Barack Obama eine neue Strategie für den Krieg in Afghanistan: Mehr ziviler Aufbau, weniger Kollateralschäden. Soweit der Plan. Derweil kämpfen seine Truppen in Afghanistan weiter im Rambo-Stil - und zerstören so die Fortschritte niederländischer Soldaten in Urusgan.

Die Leute im Ort nannten ihn "Herr Hassan". Denn er hatte studiert, war eigentlich Lehrer - aber sorgte seit Jahren als Koch im Gästehaus des Bürgermeisters dafür, dass stets heißer Tee da war, und hörte im baumbestandenen Hof seine Lieblingskassetten. Vermutlich hätte es ihm gefallen, dass der neue amerikanische Präsident Hunderte zusätzlicher Aufbauhelfer nach Afghanistan schicken will, denn Hassans Heimatstädtchen Imam Sahib ganz oben im Norden gehört zu den friedlichsten Orten Afghanistans. Wo es keine Taliban gibt und eine der größten Sorgen darin besteht, einen Berieselungswagen gegen den Staub auf den Straßen zu bekommen. ... [and so forth]

Today's front page of stern.de, for anyone interested.

--------------------
PS:

I think adding an "afaik" to my reply was enough to avoid making the statement too "sweeping". It's an expression of not being 100% sure, and therefore less of a "sweeping assertion" than the vast majority of what's being written in this forum.

"afaik" is not a source; and adding it to an otherwise sweeping statement, does not make that statement any less sweeping - only that the statement is based on your personal knowledge, whatever that might be.

[Ken White]

Take the Article at face value. Most of us agree it will, in the west, affect few and is likely to be transient in that limited effect. It's accuracy is a least questionable and some will realize the discrepancies, some will not. Disregard the west.

Use this article as an example. Look at at it from the Operational (i.e. in Afghanistan) IO stand point and from the Afghan standpoint, both locally and nationally. What could we do to preclude erroneous reporting (not saying it is present but that it may be or certainly could be in another situation)? How do we handle it locally, IO - wise? Nationally in Afghanistan?

I think I mentioned one time that the Colombians fly in a team rapidly after every strike or operation to do two things, take pictures and gather evidence if needed and, more importantly, tell the local folks what happened and why. Could we do that? Should we?

Anyone have any ideas? Fuchs? Schmedlap? Entropy? Surferbeetle?

[Cavguy]

Take the Article at face value. Most of us agree it will, in the west, affect few and is likely to be transient in that limited effect. It's accuracy is a least questionable and some will realize the discrepancies, some will not. Disregard the west.

Use this article as an example. Look at at it from the Operational (i.e. in Afghanistan) IO stand point and from the Afghan standpoint, both locally and nationally. What could we do to preclude erroneous reporting (not saying it is present but that it may be or certainly could be in another situation)? How do we handle it locally, IO - wise? Nationally in Afghanistan?

I think I mentioned one time that the Colombians fly in a team rapidly after every strike or operation to do two things, take pictures and gather evidence if needed and, more importantly, tell the local folks what happened and why. Could we do that? Should we?

Anyone have any ideas? Fuchs? Schmedlap? Entropy? Surferbeetle?

I agree this article smells, but after reading the "Kill Company" article in the New Yorker, the Sassman incident, etc., I no longer dismiss these things out of hand.

I do disagree that because a few have committed such violations it represents the conduct of the whole.

[William F. Owen]

I do disagree that because a few have committed such violations it represents the conduct of the whole.

Precisely, but try telling Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch that.

[davidbfpo]

Taken from

Use this article as an example. Look at at it from the Operational (i.e. in Afghanistan) IO stand point and from the Afghan standpoint, both locally and nationally. What could we do to preclude erroneous reporting (not saying it is present but that it may be or certainly could be in another situation)? How do we handle it locally, IO - wise? Nationally in Afghanistan?

I think I mentioned one time that the Colombians fly in a team rapidly after every strike or operation to do two things, take pictures and gather evidence if needed and, more importantly, tell the local folks what happened and why. Could we do that? Should we?

Anyone have any ideas?

Ken,

A few years ago this type of follow up action (heaven forbid not learnt from the Colombians) started to feature in some parts of the UK, after police-led execution of search warrants - albeit only for drugs. Experience found that the locals reciprocated - quietly - with information and support. The RUC / PSNI found the same, after the PIRA ceasefire, that action on public nuisances, e.g. abandoned cars, had the same effect.

davidbfpo

[jmm99]

as a work in progress, see here starting with this post (last paragraph).

[Schmedlap]

I think I mentioned one time that the Colombians fly in a team rapidly after every strike or operation to do two things, take pictures and gather evidence if needed and, more importantly, tell the local folks what happened and why. Could we do that? Should we?

Anyone have any ideas? Fuchs? Schmedlap? Entropy? Surferbeetle?

We can, we should, and we do. I've been involved in numerous missions where we had a PSYOP team attached for that specific purpose. Believe it or not, we did it as early as 2003, and continued to do it until my last deployment in 2007. I'm sure it is even more commonplace today. We actually went one step further than the Columbians, planning this well ahead of the mission, anticipating the need when we were hitting a target that was clearly sensitive (such as a mosque) or going after a target whom we knew would respond by pumping disinformation through an al-Reuters stringer or through contacts with the AP. Documentation was SOP, regardless of the nature of the mission. No mission was considered complete in 2007 without the "money shot" of all of the weapons, explosives, cash, etc, that was seized, dropping calling cards, preparing the press release, and follow-up engagement with the locals, and several other steps.

[Surferbeetle]

Anyway, Steve (and others), here's a German strudel for you - 10.04.2009, 10:00 Uhr, Krieg in Afghanistan: Strategie des Scheiterns:

Mike,

Strudel's are great and I always enjoyed the weissbier, brochen, and wurst for breakfast as well.

Back to our topic, this was a nice catch. Scheiterns: Fail because of negotiations, break down, be stopped. Versagen: Refuse, deny, forgo, fail, breakdown, misfire. It saves me a trip to my university library to see the Stern hardcopy.

I'll echo what most here have noted, the article does not 'smell' right, but bad things do happen in war, and it does harden the participants. We will see.

I'll also note that I appreciate Fuch's posts and enjoy watching the interplay between two cultures meeting. Now add 125F, a language barrier, hard feelings and weapons and you have some insights into why Civil Affairs work is so interesting...and why we will always need barristers and judges

I think I mentioned one time that the Colombians fly in a team rapidly after every strike or operation to do two things, take pictures and gather evidence if needed and, more importantly, tell the local folks what happened and why. Could we do that? Should we?

Anyone have any ideas? Fuchs? Schmedlap? Entropy? Surferbeetle?

Ken,

On the CA side of things we did some of this in OIF1, but approached it more from a property damage standpoint in order to try and level the playing field in terms of payments. From a practicality standpoint it was not always possible and more akin to trying to bail the ocean...lots of things were happening on the battlefield and not everybody was focused upon it. My friends in the JAG section sure did appreciate it however...

With training this TTP could be done if it was a priority...from a lawfare standpoint, this is of course a two-edged sword. Speaking of which lets think about troops to task: MP's are scarce, the JAG section is light on people, CA-bubbas are rarer than hens teeth (and some would say just as useful), soooo.... will our company commanders be thanking us for another FRAGO?

Best,

Steve

[carl]

We can, we should, and we do. I've been involved in numerous missions where we had a PSYOP team attached for that specific purpose. Believe it or not, we did it as early as 2003, and continued to do it until my last deployment in 2007. I'm sure it is even more commonplace today. We actually went one step further than the Columbians, planning this well ahead of the mission, anticipating the need when we were hitting a target that was clearly sensitive (such as a mosque) or going after a target whom we knew would respond by pumping disinformation through an al-Reuters stringer or through contacts with the AP. Documentation was SOP, regardless of the nature of the mission. No mission was considered complete in 2007 without the "money shot" of all of the weapons, explosives, cash, etc, that was seized, dropping calling cards, preparing the press release, and follow-up engagement with the locals, and several other steps.

If this had been done at Farah last May it may have gone far in helping to ameliorate what was in effect a serious defeat for us.

[Surferbeetle]

From this mornings Spiegel: Neue Regeln erlauben Deutschen offensiveres Vorgehen

New rules allow German (soldiers to engage in) offensive operations

Deutsche Soldaten können künftig in Afghanistan schneller ihre Waffen einsetzen: Die Bundesregierung hat einige ihrer bisherigen Vorbehalte zum Nato-Operationsplan fallenlassen. Der Verteidigungsausschuss war über diese Änderungen nicht informiert.

German soldiers will be able to use their weapons faster in Afghanistan: The German Government has dropped a previously held condition/proviso to NATO Operations Plans. The Defense Committee (of the Bundestag) was not informed about this change.

Kabul - Um deutschen Soldaten in Afghanistan ein offensiveres Vorgehen zu ermöglichen, wurden nach SPIEGEL-Informationen die "Nationalen Klarstellungen" zum Nato-Operationsplan geändert. Folgender Satz wurde komplett gestrichen: "Die Anwendung tödlicher Gewalt ist verboten, solange nicht ein Angriff stattfindet oder unmittelbar bevorsteht."

Kabul- In order to enable German soldiers to engage in offensive operations the ‘National Clarifications’ of the NATO-Operations Plan, according to Spiegel sources, was changed. The following phrase was completely stricken: “The use of deadly force is forbidden, as long as there is not an immediate/direct or impending attack.”

Zudem entfällt der Begriff "Einsatz angemessener Gewalt" für deutsche Aktionen, künftig gilt stattdessen das Wort "Angriff". Der Verteidigungsausschuss des Bundestags war über diese Änderungen nicht informiert.

This is with the understanding/caveat that (the phrase) “apply measured force” for the German actions will be used instead of the word “attack”. The Defense Committee (of the Bundestag) was not informed about this change.

[Fuchs]

Zudem entfällt der Begriff "Einsatz angemessener Gewalt" für deutsche Aktionen, künftig gilt stattdessen das Wort "Angriff". Der Verteidigungsausschuss des Bundestags war über diese Änderungen nicht informiert.

This is with the understanding/caveat that (the phrase) “apply measured force” for the German actions will be used instead of the word “attack”. The Defense Committee (of the Bundestag) was not informed about this change.

It's the other way around.
"Angriff" (attack/assault) is the new word, they deleted the other one.
There's no caveat in the sentence.

By the way; the last rumour I heard about why it's officially no war shows how ridiculous our government is (I don't believe the rumour, but rumours tell a lot):
'The life insurances do allegedly not pay for KIA/WIA at war, and the SecDef has no budget to pay himself.'



The Bundestag committee on defence issues is notoriously disregarded by the SecDef. That's unlikely to change unless they get a more powerful politician as chairman. A weak SecDef was apparently not enough to raise the committee's relevance.

We're quite off-topic, aren't we?