Sanctimoniousness and Justice

Maywand District killings:

continued from yesterday

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha MP

Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs from Billings, Montana has been described as the ringleader of the FOB Ramrod “kill team”. He is charged with conspiracy and three counts of murder for allegedly plotting and killing three Afghan civilians. A report in The Guardian states that soldiers told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command that Gibbs bragged of his exploits while serving in the Iraq War, saying how easily one could “toss a grenade at someone and kill them.” Prosecutors said Gibbs was found in possession of “finger bones, leg bones and a tooth taken from Afghan corpses”.

Andrew Holmes’ attorneys argued they were constrained in defending him by the Army’s decision to conceal photos of the man he allegedly shot in January. The National Institute of Military Justice argued that the gruesome corpse photos should be made public. Holmes has also said Morlock threatened his life if he told anyone that the killing of Gul Mudin was staged and unnecessary.[34] A doctor testified at Holmes’ trial that there were no machine gun wounds on the victim that prosecutors said was shot by Holmes’ machine gun. Another soldier testified that the body was riddled with wounds and that it appeared to him that it was Holmes’ weapon that killed Mudin.

Jones of Pomona, Calif. faces charges that he beat up another soldier and fired at Afghan civilians who did not pose a threat to him. He was sentenced to seven months in prison and be demoted to private.

Kelly, of Montesano is convicted of conspiring to harm the whistleblower Spc. Justin Stoner. He was sentenced to 60 days hard labor and discharged from the Army.

Ashton A. Moore Moore of Severna Park, Md. faced the fewest charges among the group.

“The plan was to kill people, sir”

Spc. Corey Moore of Redondo Beach, Calif., pled guilty that he kicked a witness and stabbed one of the corpses. He was sentenced to 60 days hard labor and a bad conduct discharge.

Jeremy Morlock, a 22-year-old army specialist from Wasilla, Alaska has been sentenced to 24 years in prison by a military tribunal after pleading guilty to three counts of premeditated murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and illegal drug use. He will be dishonourably discharged from the military. He will become eligible for parole after serving 7 years in federal prison. He has agreed to testify against the other soldiers allegedly involved. During his hearing he was asked by Judge Lieutenant Colonel Kwasi Hawks “Were you going to shoot at (civilians) to scare them and it got out of hand?”. Morlock replied: “The plan was to kill people, sir”. Morlock’s mother accused the US government of scapegoating him: “I think the government is just playing these guys as scapegoats. The leaders dropped the ball. Who was watching over all this?” she said in a Seattle Times interview.

Quintal was given a bad-conduct discharge and sentence to 90 days hard labor in a plea deal for frequently using drugs during his combat deployment, joining an assault on a comrade and keeping digital photos of Afghan casualties. He is also required to testify against others in the case.

Robert Stevens, an Army medic from Portland, Oregon was sentenced to nine months in prison as part of a plea deal to testify against 11 other Lewis-McChord based Stryker soldiers. He pleaded guilty to four charges including shooting “in the direction of” two Afghan farmers for no reason. Stevens said Gibbs ordered him to shoot on the two farmers and that he regretted ``not trying to stop Staff Sgt. Gibbs from trying to kill innocent people,”.

Christopher Winfield, the father of platoon member Spc. Adam C. Winfield, attempted to alert the Army of the “kill team’s” existence when his son explained the situation from Afghanistan via aFacebook chat after the first killing. In response to the news from his son, Christopher Winfield called the Army inspector general’s 24-hour hotline, the office of Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and a sergeant at Joint Base Lewis-McChord who told him to call the Army’s criminal investigations division. He then contacted the Fort Lewis command center and spoke to a sergeant on duty who agreed that Spc. Winfield was in potential danger but he had to report the crime to his superiors before the Army could take action.

Hashish use

Officials became alerted after an unnamed soldier reported hashish use by Morlock and Gibbs, and after reporting the incident to a sergeant, Spc. Winfield was accused of “snitching” and physically assaulted. The assailants warned the private to stay silent, but he contacted investigators, and informed them about hash and alcohol use by members of his company, and further raising his suspicions that some of his fellow soldiers had slain civilians while on patrol.

On August 5, 2011 Winfield charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder pleaded guilty under a plea deal to involuntary manslaughter and use of an illegal controlled substance. The involuntary manslaughter charge stems from Winfield’s failure to intervene and prevent the other soldiers from carrying out the attack against the Afghan in U.S. custody. Under the plea deal he didn’t admit to the killing of Mullah Adahdad. He claimed that he fired his automatic weapon away from Adahdad but that he did nothing to stop the murder. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Wagnon from Las Vegas faces the following charges: possessing a human skull fragment, conspiracy to murder an Afghan, conspiracy to harm Afghans, assaulting noncombatants, trying to destroy evidence. The US Army issued an apology for the photos, stating that ``These court-martial proceedings speak for themselves. The photos appear in stark contrast to the discipline, professionalism and respect that have characterized our soldiers’ performance during nearly 10 years of sustained operations.” In a Department Of Defense Press release on March 28, 2011 the Army stated:

US Army issued an apology

The Army will relentlessly pursue the truth, no matter where it leads, both in and out of court, no matter how unpleasant it may be, no matter how long it takes. As an Army, we are troubled that any soldier would lose his `moral compass’ as one soldier said during his trial. We will continue to do whatever we need to as an institution to understand how it happened, why it happened and what we need to do to prevent it from happening again.”

According to a secret US Army investigative report obtained by Der Spiegel Colonel Harry Tunnell’s (of the 5th Stryker Brigade) ``inattentiveness to administrative matters may have helped create an environment in which misconduct could occur.” However the report according to Der Spiegel cleared him of responsibility stating there was no `causal relationship’ between the killings and his “aggressive leadership style”. At least a dozen media organisations have filed Freedom of Information Act for the report.