The Mysterines - Reeling
3 hours ago
Saturday, 2 April 2011
The Kill Team
Cpl. Jeremy Morlock with Staff Sgt. David Bram
Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan, a group of American infantrymen reached a momentous decision: It was finally time to kill a haji.Among the men of Bravo Company, the notion of killing an Afghan civilian had been the subject of countless conversations, during lunchtime chats and late-night bull sessions. For weeks, they had weighed the ethics of bagging "savages" and debated the probability of getting caught. Some of them agonized over the idea; others were gung-ho from the start. But not long after the New Year, as winter descended on the arid plains of Kandahar Province, they agreed to stop talking and actually pull the trigger.
Bravo Company had been stationed in the area since summer, struggling, with little success, to root out the Taliban and establish an American presence in one of the most violent and lawless regions of the country. On the morning of January 15th, the company's 3rd Platoon – part of the 5th Stryker Brigade, based out of Tacoma, Washington – left the mini-metropolis of tents and trailers at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in a convoy of armored Stryker troop carriers. The massive, eight-wheeled trucks surged across wide, vacant stretches of desert, until they came to La Mohammad Kalay, an isolated farming village tucked away behind a few poppy fields.
To provide perimeter security, the soldiers parked the Strykers at the outskirts of the settlement, which was nothing more than a warren of mud-and-straw compounds. Then they set out on foot. Local villagers were suspected of supporting the Taliban, providing a safe haven for strikes against U.S. troops. But as the soldiers of 3rd Platoon walked through the alleys of La Mohammad Kalay, they saw no armed fighters, no evidence of enemy positions. Instead, they were greeted by a frustratingly familiar sight: destitute Afghan farmers living without electricity or running water; bearded men with poor teeth in tattered traditional clothes; young kids eager for candy and money. It was impossible to tell which, if any, of the villagers were sympathetic to the Taliban. The insurgents, for their part, preferred to stay hidden from American troops, striking from a distance with IEDs.
While the officers of 3rd Platoon peeled off to talk to a village elder inside a compound, two soldiers walked away from the unit until they reached the far edge of the village. There, in a nearby poppy field, they began looking for someone to kill. "The general consensus was, if we are going to do something that fucking crazy, no one wanted anybody around to witness it," one of the men later told Army investigators.
The poppy plants were still low to the ground at that time of year. The two soldiers, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew Holmes, saw a young farmer who was working by himself among the spiky shoots. Off in the distance, a few other soldiers stood sentry. But the farmer was the only Afghan in sight. With no one around to witness, the timing was right. And just like that, they picked him for execution...
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Mark Boat @'Rolling Stone'
Vatican 'Porn' Collection to go Online
Fans of antique erotica, rejoice. The world's largest collection of pornography is about to be published on the web. Just make sure you have a credit card handy.
The Vatican Secret Archives announced yesterday plans to digitise a previously unacknowledged collection of prohibited materials.Kept hidden by an act of pontifical secrecy, the items, once decreed obscene, are being unveiled as part of a new papal directive on transparency.
The collection includes tens of thousands of drawings, frescoes, engravings, artifacts, and ephemera dating from the Reniassance back to classical antiquity.
Included in the materials available for a free but censored preview are an illuminated manuscript depicting the Song of Solomon and several illustrations of Mary Magdalene.
Profits to Defray Bankrupt Dioceses
Costs and pricing for full access to the online collection have not been finalized. Income generated from paying subscribers will be set aside in a special account administered by the Catholic Church.The account will be used to reimburse losses by churches that have decalred bankruptcy to eliminate their obligation to pay court judgements in sexual abuse cases.
Government, Industry Experts to Oversee Project
Funding for the collection's digitisation has been procured via an executive order from Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who has expressed a strong interest in "protecting our priceless cultural heritage." Berlusconi has appointed a confidential liaison to oversee the process.Age verification, credit card processing, and acount maintenance will be run by adult entertainment magnate Larry Flynt.
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