# Special forces mistake Afghan boys school for IED cell, execute students **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 15, 2010, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189 "2010-04-15T09:40:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/41 "2010-04-15T22:05:55Z")
Wow, I’m not even hung up on the fact that they weren’t actually terrorists. Even if they were absolutely sure they were an IED cell, how does that make it ok to tie them up and execute them? God, I hope people go to prison over this. ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/42 "2010-04-15T22:06:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not really. We are not above terror tactics. On the contrary, I think suggesting our soldiers actively seek out children to kill is a _very_ ‘out there’ opinion. I would only call it ‘fringe’ if you were just saying they didn’t give a crap about killing children. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/43 "2010-04-15T22:17:45Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > Wow, I’m not even hung up on the fact that they weren’t actually terrorists. Even if they were absolutely sure they were an IED cell, how does that make it ok to tie them up and execute them? > > God, I hope people go to prison over this. Buddy, just because **Der Tris** thinks Occam’s Razor is what American troops use to disembowel innocent children doesn’t mean that you have to be that stupid as well. What part of “no direct evidence” is tripping you up? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/44 "2010-04-15T22:33:40Z")
You know, we live in a country where a sizable portion of the population clamored for a completely unnecessary war, where a sizable portion of the population has either ignored or embraced or even demanded that our government torture people, where lots of people have said it’s completely okay for government officials to behave in a completely lawless fashion, and where lots of people think we should be violating treaties up and down the wazoo. Now, these aren’t fringe viewpoints. The people who engaged in systematic lawlessness, who advocated torture and all sorts of barbaric behavior, the people who compared torture to fraternity pranks or demanded that we just needed to throw some crappy country against the wall–those people are treated as a completely respectable part of our discourse. Certainly, they’re viewpoints aren’t treated as beyond the pale, either for our political class or our media or for a sizable portion of Americans. Now, I certainly think we should be cautious and wait until more facts come in before making a conclusion about what happened here. But I find it utterly bizarre that people are acting as if it is outrageous to think soldiers would have done this thing they are being accused of. The people who cheer on this sort of thing are considered serious and respectable and real America, while the people who get upset and demand thorough independent investigations are derided as looney lefties or traitors or whatever. The people who want oversight to ensure that this accused behavior couldn’t possibly happen–those people have been thoroughly shut out and marginalized from our political discourse. So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t join in the outrage that someone might think American troops do this sort of thing routinely. As I said, I’ll wait until the facts come in before coming to a conclusion, but if the allegations turn out to be true, I’m not going to be shocked by it. This accused behavior is right in line with what the serious political establishment as well as large numbers of Americans have been demanding for years. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/45 "2010-04-15T22:49:38Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I call Bullshit, and some of you idiots are swallowing the bias the same as idiots on the other side of the coin swallow Fox News’ “Fair and Balanced” propaganda. For Christ sakes people, the first link is to “The Anti Press: Dedicated to the defense of the truth in an age of media control”. Does that sound unbiased? The headline of that one reads "The media waits: four months on and still no official Nato press release on the existence of Special Forces Death Squads " Death squads?! Really?! That’s on par with the conservatives idiots calling socialized geriatric health care “Death Panels”. What’s inaccurate in calling them “death squads”? They were parachuted in to presumably assassinate an IED cell. Seems like the _very definition_ of a death squad to me. > [@](#): > > The link to the Times is much better, of course, but you have to read with a touch more of a critical eye. So in fact there was absolutely nothing wrong with the first link, which essentially said everything that the Times said, but you thought you’d throw in a classic _ad hominem_ anyway? > [@](#): > > Do you honestly think American troops are breaking into kids’ bedrooms, handcuffing them, and then shooting them in the back of the head? Are we the monster under the bed now? Yes, I believe that in this case this is precisely what has happened. Are the soldiers caught picking bullets out of corpses they created, referenced upthread, also imaginary because you declare them so by fiat? > [@](#): > > Will you idiots _please_ reread this sentence from the Times article. Reread it several times: The claim that there’s no “direct evidence”? I’ve read it. Why don’t you reread it. What exactly is direct evidence? A video of the incident? Perhaps some CSI style forensics team flown out to the mountainous farm where the event allegedly occurred? Is the NATO spokesman accepting that there’s _indirect_ evidence then? What makes a NATO spokesman particularly trustworthy over eyewitnesses who were interviewed by a Times reporter sent to the region after the attack? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/46 "2010-04-15T22:53:36Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > Wow, I’m not even hung up on the fact that they weren’t actually terrorists. Even if they were absolutely sure they were an IED cell, how does that make it ok to tie them up and execute them? > > God, I hope people go to prison over this. Morally aside, it’s also crappy doctrine - why not take them prisoner? They can always provide useful intelligence about the next IED cell. That’s assuming the U.S. military actually has a functional Intelligence Corps. Frankly, I haven’t seen much evidence of that. Soldiers in the field seem to be selecting their own targets based on local “informants”, with no centralized data system, no cross-referencing and verification, no chain of command, nothing. Pure amateur hour. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/47 "2010-04-15T23:00:24Z")
Did **Capt Ridley** rape and murder a young girl in 1992? There is no direct evidence that he did, but all we have is his word that he didn’t. Of course he’s going to say that he didn’t, but why should we believe the word of a murderer? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/48 "2010-04-15T23:05:48Z")
… Analogy fail ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/49 "2010-04-15T23:09:29Z")
Got you confused with Glenn Beck. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/50 "2010-04-15T23:13:47Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > … > > Analogy fail Of course _you’re_ going to try to sweep this under the rug. You’re the one that may or may not have committed a heinous crime. You’re the accused. Don’t we all know that accusations equal guilt? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/51 "2010-04-15T23:14:19Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > You know, we live in a country where a sizable portion of the population clamored for a completely unnecessary war, where a sizable portion of the population has either ignored or embraced or even demanded that our government torture people, where lots of people have said it’s completely okay for government officials to behave in a completely lawless fashion, and where lots of people think we should be violating treaties up and down the wazoo. > > Now, these aren’t fringe viewpoints. The people who engaged in systematic lawlessness, who advocated torture and all sorts of barbaric behavior, the people who compared torture to fraternity pranks or demanded that we just needed to throw some crappy country against the wall–those people are treated as a completely respectable part of our discourse. Certainly, they’re viewpoints aren’t treated as beyond the pale, either for our political class or our media or for a sizable portion of Americans. > > Now, I certainly think we should be cautious and wait until more facts come in before making a conclusion about what happened here. But I find it utterly bizarre that people are acting as if it is outrageous to think soldiers would have done this thing they are being accused of. The people who cheer on this sort of thing are considered serious and respectable and real America, while the people who get upset and demand thorough independent investigations are derided as looney lefties or traitors or whatever. The people who want oversight to ensure that this accused behavior couldn’t possibly happen–those people have been thoroughly shut out and marginalized from our political discourse. > > So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t join in the outrage that someone might think American troops do this sort of thing routinely. As I said, I’ll wait until the facts come in before coming to a conclusion, but if the allegations turn out to be true, I’m not going to be shocked by it. This accused behavior is right in line with what the serious political establishment as well as large numbers of Americans have been demanding for years. No, we live in a country where people really _want_ to trust the real culprits: the government, which has failed us time and again regardless of party affiliation by lying to us and we keep wanting to believe it. The military is just a tool, an arm of the government that is subject to its whims. The enemy in these cases isn’t always the military, it’s us, the voters. And I also don’t think people by and large in the USA are actively cheering for torture and murder, they are being fed false information about what defines torture and its effectiveness and once again being misled by what it is or the breadth and scope of its use. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/52 "2010-04-15T23:18:20Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Of course _you’re_ going to try to sweep this under the rug. You’re the one that may or may not have committed a heinous crime. You’re the accused. Don’t we all know that accusations equal guilt? I dunno, when there’s bodies, a shit tonne of eyewitnesses, a statement from NATO stating that the operation should never have gone ahead, and another statement pretty much admitting that there’s evidence, just not a live webcast of the event, I’m thinking the scales are tipped further one way than the other. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/53 "2010-04-15T23:22:02Z")
Worst username/thread combo ever. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/54 "2010-04-15T23:32:06Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Worst username/thread combo ever. Yeah, I thought about that earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/55 "2010-04-15T23:42:11Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’ll check back when a reputable source (meaning not some moron working for Karzai) has more information. How about the [UN](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34644227), which also concluded that those killed were children? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/56 "2010-04-16T00:01:24Z")
> [@Walmarticus](#): > > On the contrary, I think suggesting our soldiers actively seek out children to kill is a _very_ ‘out there’ opinion. I would only call it ‘fringe’ if you were just saying they didn’t give a crap about killing children. Oh, please. We’ve apparently tortured children, we’ve tortured people in general and trained people in torture; we’ve taught the enforcement squads of our puppet dictators to use rape, mutilation and and torture as CIA approved techniques. If there is anything America has shown over the years, it’s that there is absolutely no depth to which we will not sink. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/57 "2010-04-16T00:01:26Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > How about the [UN](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34644227), which also concluded that those killed were children? If everything that’s being presented can be taken at face value, then its obviously horrible beyond belief. But a horrible _mistake_. I just cannot see a night raid by Special Ops forces that thought they knew exactly what they were doing and whom they were killing wasting children/teenagers like this unless something was horribly wrong with the intel, the mission, _something_. As much as people want to keep arguing the “well that’s just par for the course for those murdering American bastards”, I’m going to argue against it. I’ve experienced too much American military culture and am not that far removed from active duty myself to conclude that the American force in this instance made a conscious decision to murder kids. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/58 "2010-04-16T00:02:46Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > No, we live in a country where people really _want_ to trust the real culprits: the government, which has failed us time and again regardless of party affiliation by lying to us and we keep wanting to believe it. The military is just a tool, an arm of the government that is subject to its whims. **The enemy in these cases isn’t always the military, it’s us, the voters.** (emphasis added) I don’t appreciate at all you responding to me with the last part. I never called the military an enemy or implied anything of the kind. > [@](#): > > And I also don’t think people by and large in the USA are actively cheering for torture and murder, they are being fed false information about what defines torture and its effectiveness and once again being misled by what it is or the breadth and scope of its use. If someone wants the government to use torture (and military personnel are government employees), then it’s ridiculous for such a person to get upset when a government employee (such as a soldier) is accused of torture. In that case, the soldier is implementing the policy that said person desired. And we have a lot of those said people in this country. Regardless of what reason they’ve chosen to embrace torture, they have still embraced it. It is a mainstream viewpoint in America that the government should torture people and break laws. So, I don’t see the point in acting outraged because someone thinks government employees are torturing people or breaking laws. When you have large amounts of people advocating that government employees torture and break laws, and that viewpoint is echoed by various pundits and politicians, it’s hardly absurd to suggest that government employees might just be doing the thing people want them to do. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/59 "2010-04-16T00:20:28Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > …And as my Dad pointed out in my earlier post, operations at night are tricky. The Big problem I see with that line of reasoning is when does a “mistake” become a pattern? Which is kind of what we’re seeing. ETA: Sincerely hope your Dad outlives us all – unrealistic as it may sound, that’s my sentiment. I highly value older people and what we can learn from them. Think I might have some Chinese genes in moi. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189/60 "2010-04-16T00:22:18Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The point is that you assume the exact opposite. This makes you just as bad as they are. > > What most of these people have is a basic grasp of human nature. Humans in general just don’t do things that they think are evil. We ALWAYS have a reason. We have to justify things to ourselves. > > You boggle my mind. You’ve crossed the line from being skeptical to being sure that they’re wrong. How the heck does a person with your intellect do this? How can you be so blind to your own prejudices? > > Gah. It probably won’t help. We’ve tried and tried to get through to you, but you remain willfully ignorant. You don’t get that the extremism you believe is the exact same extremism that causes the problems you decry. It is belief that a certain subsection of the population (in your case, soldiers) are deficient and not to be looked at as human beings that allows stuff like this to happen. Wow. Quoted (i) in the hope that Der Trihs will read it again and (ii) to congratulate you for being able to respond to his dumbassery in an intelligent manner. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/special-forces-mistake-afghan-boys-school-for-ied-cell-execute-students/536189.md?page=4)