So far I have not written about the alleged “kill team” in Afghanistan because I don’t really have the facts of that case and thus cannot make a worthwhile judgment. The only thing I can say for certain is that anyone who is forming opinions of the events, the 5/2 Stryker Brigade or the US military based upon photos is a complete idiot. Cameras are the great liars of our time – useful for a lot of purposes, but unless you have the full context of the photograph or footage, you could be easily swayed to a wrong view (one remembers that President Ford decided to pull the plug on South Vietnam after seeing pictures of the disaster at Da Nang…maybe South Vietnam was irretrievably gone by then, but to make a decision based upon a bit of footage and a few photographs, that is just asinine).
Anyway, Michael Yon gets a bit furious at a Rolling Stone report which neatly illustrates why you should never rely upon cameras – and never believe anything in a liberal publication until at least two non-liberal sources confirm it:
Seldom do I waste time with rebutting articles, and especially not from publications like Rolling Stone. Today, numerous people sent links to the latest Rolling Stone tripe. The story is titled “THE KILL TEAM, THE FULL STORY.” It should be titled: “(Expletive Deleted), from Rolling Stone.”…
…The online edition of the Rolling Stone story contains a section with a video called “Motorcycle Kill,” which includes our Soldiers gunning down Taliban who were speeding on a motorcycle toward our guys. These Soldiers were also with 5/2 SBCT, far away from the “Kill Team” later accused of the murders. Rolling Stone commits a literary “crime” by deceptively entwining this normal combat video with the Kill Team story. The Taliban on the motorcycle were killed during an intense operation in the Arghandab near Kandahar City. People who have been to the Arghandab realize the extreme danger there. The Soviets got beaten horribly in the Arghandab, despite throwing everything including the Soviet kitchen sink into the battle that lasted over a month. Others fared little better. To my knowledge, 5/2 and supporting units were the first ever to take Arghandab, and these two dead Taliban were part of that process.
The killing of the armed Taliban on the motorcycle was legal and within the rules of engagement…
Of course, if your goal is to insult the United States military and denigrate our effort in Afghanistan and the larger War, then you would twist a bit of dramatic seems-like-its-bad video with a story which was entirely unrelated to the video. In this, Rolling Stone is just following the finest traditions of the MSM – namely, that of supporting the anti-American narrative whenever you can. In this case, as in so many others, the hook is something which was bad – it may be that a few of our soldiers did commit first degree murder in Afghanistan (though, once again, let’s wait for the trial…lots of these cases have collapsed when the evidence was examined). Using that hook, they then extrapolate out to turn a few bad apples in to the whole barrel…and then indict the whole effort, and demand that America be defeated as that will set the books square for all our crimes.
Don’t listen to them. Retain faith in the men and women of the United States armed forces. As in any group as large as that – and especially when placed under the severe stress of war – some will end up going bad. It happens. It is part of human nature. Anyone who commits a crime will be dealt with. But a few do not indict the whole. One can be in favor of or opposed to US military actions, but only a scoundrel would believe negative reports about our military personnel unless the evidence clearly shows that one of our boys went bad.
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