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kill team used body parts in poker games

SheWolf

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Rogue U.S. soldiers snipped the pinky off an Afghan teen they killed for kicks - and later used it to wage a bet while playing spades, a blockbuster expose reports.

That's one of the shocking stories in a new Rolling Stone magazine expose of an Army "kill team" that targeted innocent Afghan civilians for death.

Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, the squad leader and main target of the Army's ongoing war crimes investigation, allegedly sliced the finger off Gul Mudin - the approximately 15-year-old Afghan that Spc. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew Holmes are accused of killing.

"When it came time for their wager, Morlock and Holmes said they would bet a finger," Mark Boal reported MOnday in the magazine. "Then they tossed the finger that Gibbs had sliced from Mudin's body on the card pile."



Read more: U.S. soldiers' 'kill team' killed Afghanis, used body parts in poker games: report

Those kids are just sick.

It makes me wonder, if some of them joined the military just because they wanted to kill people... It's really hard to believe that they simply went crazy from being in a war zone, or that they didn't know this was wrong.

What do you think?
 
I think we waste too much time on stories like this and not enough time on stories of the heros and those who have fallen.
 
Those kids are just sick.

It makes me wonder, if some of them joined the military just because they wanted to kill people... It's really hard to believe that they simply went crazy from being in a war zone, or that they didn't know this was wrong.

What do you think?

Walk in their shoes, first then judge
 
Those kids are just sick.

It makes me wonder, if some of them joined the military just because they wanted to kill people... It's really hard to believe that they simply went crazy from being in a war zone, or that they didn't know this was wrong.

What do you think?

I think people have been taking trophies in wartime since the beginning of time. Probably did it to be funny.

Once you have dehumanized people enough to kill complete innocents, what you do after that shouldn't be much of a surprise. I find the fact that they killed these people revolting, an embarrassment to our military and our country. The finger incident? No-so-much.
 
This typifies the type of sick twisted individual who makes up a portion of any armed force including ours. Even if it is a tiny portion - its still sick. Sociopaths in uniforms who just got a license to be animals without legal consequences. War is indeed hell and some of the soldiers are demons.
 
I think people have been taking trophies in wartime since the beginning of time. Probably did it to be funny.

Once you have dehumanized people enough to kill complete innocents, what you do after that shouldn't be much of a surprise. I find the fact that they killed these people revolting, an embarrassment to our military and our country. The finger incident? No-so-much.

scalps anyone? body parts have been taken as war trophies from the dawn of time. scalps, ears, heads, fingers, penises, you name it and some where, some time in history, somebody has taken it as a trophy. the taking of body parts is not the disturbing part, the disturbing part is the intentional killing of innocents.
 
This typifies the type of sick twisted individual who makes up a portion of any armed force including ours. Even if it is a tiny portion - its still sick. Sociopaths in uniforms who just got a license to be animals without legal consequences. War is indeed hell and some of the soldiers are demons.

Any army will have its share of psychopaths. Often they are the most efficient killers. If their skills are properly directed and channeled, they are capable of heroic acts of fearlessness and selflessness. If not, well then, **** happens. That's just how it is.
 
Any army will have its share of psychopaths. Often they are the most efficient killers. If their skills are properly directed and channeled, they are capable of heroic acts of fearlessness and selflessness. If not, well then, **** happens. That's just how it is.

The Taliban could make a similar rationale for their atrocities.
 
Is everybody just taking this story at face value?
 
scalps anyone? body parts have been taken as war trophies from the dawn of time. scalps, ears, heads, fingers, penises, you name it and some where, some time in history, somebody has taken it as a trophy. the taking of body parts is not the disturbing part, the disturbing part is the intentional killing of innocents.

The most disturbing part is the killing of innocents... but it's still very disturbing that they took the kid's pinky. A lot of serial killers also take body parts...

I didn't know people did it in the army that much... is that even legal? It doesn't seem like you'd be allowed to take a body part home with you.
 
At least they should preserve it with alcohol or something...it seems disturbing to keep any body part, but keeping a rotten one sounds even weirder.
 
Those kids are just sick.

It makes me wonder, if some of them joined the military just because they wanted to kill people... It's really hard to believe that they simply went crazy from being in a war zone, or that they didn't know this was wrong.

What do you think?

There's an excellent piece in The Rolling Stone that touches on this. Here's the excerpt:

Before the military found itself short of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Morlock was the kind of bad-news kid whom the Army might have passed on. He grew up not far from Sarah Palin in Wasilla, Alaska; his sister hung out with Bristol, and Morlock played hockey against Track. In those days, he was constantly in trouble: getting drunk and into fights, driving without a license, leaving the scene of a serious car accident. Even after he joined the Army, Morlock continued to get into trouble. In 2009, a month before he deployed to Afghanistan, he was charged with disorderly conduct after burning his wife with a cigarette. After he arrived in Afghanistan, he did any drug he could get his hands on: opium, hash, Ambien, amitriptyline, flexeril, phenergan, codeine, trazodone.

I strongly urge all to read this. It's long but worth the read.

The Kill Team | Rolling Stone Politics
 
The most disturbing part is the killing of innocents... but it's still very disturbing that they took the kid's pinky. A lot of serial killers also take body parts...

I didn't know people did it in the army that much... is that even legal? It doesn't seem like you'd be allowed to take a body part home with you.

most people in today's army don't, and as far as I know, it is illegal. but it does have a long historical precedence.
 
I think we waste too much time on stories like this and not enough time on stories of the heros and those who have fallen.

While true that feel good stories have less importance in our news, this story needs to be told. And you as a vet should want to see that justice gets served in order to preserve the honour of your armed forces. I am surprised not to see that from you.
 
While true that feel good stories have less importance in our news, this story needs to be told. And you as a vet should want to see that justice gets served in order to preserve the honour of your armed forces. I am surprised not to see that from you.

this dirtbag kid is going to spend the better part of his life in a military prison and when he gets out, his life will suck big time at some minimum wage job and a crappy apartment.
 
While true that feel good stories have less importance in our news, this story needs to be told. And you as a vet should want to see that justice gets served in order to preserve the honour of your armed forces. I am surprised not to see that from you.

As a veteran, I want justice be served for the illegal killing of non-combatants. I could give a **** if they cut off fingers and took pictures. Both of those acts are totally irrelevant.
 
The Taliban could make a similar rationale for their atrocities.

If Taliban he/she can't hit what he/she ****ing wants to shoot from 0m to 300m (or beyond), then the Taliban is NOT a ****ing Warrior.

**** 'em
 
While true that feel good stories have less importance in our news, this story needs to be told. And you as a vet should want to see that justice gets served in order to preserve the honour of your armed forces. I am surprised not to see that from you.


Translation: we need to paint the entire us military in a bad light when two or three soldiers go whacky.

Where were you in saying all the stories of good about our military NEED to be told? Sounds like an anti American military hater to me. And I don't respect those people.
 
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