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L’interéssante remarque d’un lecteur anonyme & francophone: cette unité arriverait à point nommée pour absoudre la coalition occidentale de ces massacres.

“We now know that My Lai was no fluke but simply one of countless such atrocities carried out as part of the official Yank policy of assassinating suspected Vietcong - called Operation Phoenix - and exterminating Vietcong sympathizers, i.e. anyone who had the misfortune of living inside US-designated “free fire zones,” which was the case of My Lai, making its inhabitants legitimate targets. As Westmoreland famously told his troops: “[I]f there are people who are out there - and not in the camps - they’re pink as far as we’re concerned. They’re Communist sympathizers. They were not supposed to be there.” My Lai was a war crime committed under the explicit rules of engagement issued by the Yank brass all the way to the top, i.e. the commander-in-chief. Under Nuremberg rules, Westmoreland and Nixon would have swung from the gallows.

Now let’s get to those Herat massacres, blamed by this apparently excellent piece of journalism - or is it spoon-fed disinformation - on a former and disgraced neocon secdef, and particularly a disgraced secdef for whom the Pentagon never hid its contempt? We’re being told in great, spectacular detail that a “rogue” unit was alone responsible for ALL Yank atrocities in Afghanistan and it’s all Rumsfeld fault. And surprise surprise, the rogue unit belongs to the Pentagon’s least-loved, most maligned and least-funded service - the one whose fighting prowess on a shoestring has always made the other money-no-object and underperforming, incompetent service look bad: the Marines.

The Independent would have us believe that the Yank military is on the case, it has disciplined the unit, Rumsfeld was fired long ago, so all is well. Boy do I feel reassured. Boy is that great journalism or what? Boy did The Independent score a megasuperduper scoop there or what? N-O-freaking-T NOT! It’s just another goddamn Pentagon-concocted load of “information warfare” batch of hooey! US airstrikes in Afghanistan went fron 6,495 to 19,603 between 2004-2008 and The Independent wants us to believe it’s all the fault of Rumsfeld’s goon squad? Human Rights Watch reported that US airstrikes were responsible for TRIPLING Afghan civilian deaths in 2007 - the year that those airstrikes increased 80% - and The Independent wants to sell us some baloney about a rogue unit?”