The Marines’ 2005 “massacre” of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha began with a bang but ended with a whimper Monday. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich pled guilty to a single count of negligent dereliction of duty in …
Military Justice
Afghanistan’s Helmand Province: Both Sides Now
Over the weekend, GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry and the conservative, pro-military Moving American Forward advocacy group defended the Marines who allegedly urinated on Taliban corpses. This is what happens when politics …
Viral Atrocities and the Dark Complexity of War
A funny thing happens when you speak with a room full of school children–they have a tendency to say exactly what’s on their minds. When I returned from my first tour in Iraq, just before Christmas 2006, the principals in my …
A Onetime Marine Scout Sniper on What His Comrades Did to the Dead Taliban
Alex Lemons, a former Marine sergeant who deployed to Iraq three times – including once as scout sniper – reflects on the video of four Marines urinating on the corpses of three dead Taliban in Afghanistan:
This is all …
The Few. The Proud. The Morons.
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Senator John McCain said the viral video clip of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan apparently urinating on three corpses identified as Taliban enemy dead “makes me so sad” on CBS Thursday morning.
There’s not a lot else that needs to be said.
Happy 10th Birthday, Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay remains the persistent headache that pretty much all Americans would like to go away. Wednesday marks its 10th birthday as home to alleged terrorists scooped up by the U.S. following the 9/11 terror …
“Thanks to our brave men and women in uniform, al Qaeda is weaker than it’s ever been, and Osama bin Laden will never again walk the face of this Earth. That’s what change is.”
Would It Have Made a Difference?
The Army issued this Insider Threats in Partnering Environments recently, largely because of the periodic attacks on U.S. and allied troops by their alleged Afghan allies. It’s a pretty comprehensive guide to how U.S. troops …
Air Force: Firing For Effect?
Major Kale Mosley was getting ready to board his KC-135 refueling tanker for Iraq last June when a commander pulled him aside. He was being fired as of Nov. 30, contrary to a long-standing Pentagon policy that lets officers stay …
Sexual-Harassment Reports at Military Academies Jump 59%
What better time than the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s to whisper to the world that reported allegations of sexual assault and harassment at the nation’s military academies soared from 41 during the 2010 academic year to 65 in the school year that ended in May?
The increase has triggered a policy change …
TIME Veterans Day Twitter Chat–2:30 pm (1430) under #TIMEVets
In honor of Veterans Day, we will be holding a special Twitter discussion about the disconnect between the U.S. military, veterans returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of American society under the hashtag #TIMEVets.
About Those Status-of-Forces Agreements
The U.S. military says it had no choice but to pull out of Iraq by year’s end because Baghdad would not give U.S. troops immunity from local prosecution. U.S. troops overseas almost always are covered by a so-called Status-of-Forces Agreement, which bars local prosecution in favor of giving jurisdiction to the U.S. military and its …