US Troops Carrying Out 'Battlefield Executions' In Afghanistan, Seymour Hersh Says (VIDEO)

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says that US forces in Afghanistan are carrying out what he referred to as "battlefield executions" of prisoners.

"One of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan," Hersh said during a discussion at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference last month in Geneva, where he was also the keynote speaker. "They're being executed on the battlefield."

Hersh, who broke the Abu Ghraib prison abuse story in 2004, says that five or six people had told him about the battlefield executions of prisoners. A video of his comments was uploaded to Michael Moore's YouTube Channel on Tuesday.

Here's how Hersh described the executions:

What they've done in the field now is, they tell the troops, you have to make a determination within a day or two or so whether or not the prisoners you have, the detainees, are Taliban. You must extract whatever tactical intelligence you can get, as opposed to strategic, long-range intelligence, immediately. And if you cannot conclude they're Taliban, you must turn them free. What it means is, and I've been told this anecdotally by five or six different people, battlefield executions are taking place. Well, if they can't prove they're Taliban, bam. If we don't do it ourselves, we turn them over to the nearby Afghan troops and by the time we walk three feet the bullets are flying. And that's going on now.

During the discussion Hersh also warned that he thought President Obama was in "real trouble" when it came to geopolitics. "The military are dominating him on the important issues of the world: Iraq, Iran, Afghan, and Pakistan," Hersh said.

"He's never going to win in Afghanistan," Hersh said. "He's got the wrong policy in Pakistan."

WATCH: Hersh on "battlefield executions"

WATCH: Hersh On Obama being 'dominated' by the military

Comments

[Air Force Proud]

01:52 PM on 05/16/2010

Seymour Hersch. Please. HollyBork-every war is a tragedy. Correct? Was your life touched by 9/11? I bet not. I think to be a qualified expert you need to have fought for freedom in a foreign land-put your life on the line or in the hands of others. These "execution" remarks are truly absurd...Let's just quietly go into the night and except these "experts" opinions of which they truly know nothing, right? Wrong. There are a lot of bad people out there that truly hate every American. What better than to continuously slander their honor with disgraceful unfounded "anecdotal" smut...I am sorry to every Soldier, Seaman, Marine, Airman that these comments are even published...To every troop fighting for freedom-keep up the great work and we-the faithful....appreciate your sacrifice!

[Julie Zhou]

12:19 AM on 05/20/2010

War is more than tragedy, it is inhuman to intentionally kill for some ideology. Many all over the world are touched by 911, not only those who support war. Fighting for whose freedom in a foreign land? Direct personal experience does not make one an expert. Bad people hate American? That is enough to justify taking life? The report does not slander anyone's honor or add to anyone's shame if the conscience is clear. In the name of god or in the name of freedom, killing another human is more than tragedy. More killing does not stop killing. 3000 innocent Americans dead the same way thousands of innocent civilians died in the war: not by their own choice but by the choice of others to make a point.

[dmighty]

12:09 PM on 05/16/2010

Oh, come on now Seymour Hersch. You've "been told this anecdotally by five or six different people". Your words Mr Hersch. So you yourself doubt the veracity of what you've been told, and are now irresponsibly repeating it.
A good journalist would nails the facts first!

[trying2help]

02:11 AM on 05/15/2010

Anectdotal comments are not evidence. Seymour did America a favour by detailing what he did about US Iraq prisons. But I didn't see this over there at all. Here say is not the same as evidence and he knows better.

[Chopin]

08:25 PM on 05/14/2010

Malmedy massacre:--

"The Malmedy massacre was war crime in which about 90 American prisoners of war were murdered by their German captors during WW2. The massacre was committed on December 17, 1944, by Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of 1st SS Panzer Division), a German combat unit, during Battle of the Bulge.

This massacre, as well as others committed by the same unit on same day and following days, was subject of trial during Dachau Trials of 1946.

Size of the massacre, which apparently is the only one perpetrated on such scale against American troops in Europe during WW2, caused uproar at the time. However, the number of victims was quite low, compared to other German atrocities.

In addition to the effect the event had on American combatants in Europe, it seems that news of massacre greatly affected the United States. This explains why alleged culprits were deferred to the Dachau Trials, which were held in May - June 1946, after the war.

The Tribunal tried more than 70 persons and pronounced 43 death sentences (none of which was carried out) and 22 life sentences. Eight other men were sentenced to shorter prison sentences."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=malmedy+massacre&rlz=1R2ADSA_enUS365&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=malmedy&gs_rfai=&fp=ca804df6b427d280


Predictable effects of similar war crimes committed in Afghanistan on Afghan combattants are more determined desperate fighting, on civilians more implacable hatred of Americans.

[Pleroma]

02:06 AM on 05/15/2010

I'm sure Mr Obama has a most eloquent speech on this. Until that time I'll take his stand-up routine as his final statement.

We are all aware he's a killer. It comes with his job. Unless he works differently, and there's no sign of that.

[gakabani]

03:55 PM on 05/14/2010

We have known this for a long time but it seems that SH now has the evidence. Good, the question is when are we going to prosecute our criminals?

[hollybork]

03:38 PM on 05/14/2010

I wish I could say I am shocked. I was dumbfounded when we suspended habeas corpus, disavowed the Geneva Convention, engaged in torture of detainees and made no apologies for any of it. I was devastated when we went into Iraq, knowing it was totally absurb and would be worse than another Vietnam. But I am not shocked, and I am not surprised. I rather feel dying in a war is better than being tortured. That is my emotional response and I fully expect people to tell me why we need to keep people alive in the field to take them back to torture chambers to strip, electrocute, starve, terrorize and beat them into a pulp.

The part that bothers me a lot is there is no end in sight to this "war on terror." Every ten years we are in another useless war and I don't know why. We no longer know the rules of engagement anymore. The only benefit is for corporate interests who gain new markets or new resources to plunder.

We have lost our moral moorings! We have lost our humane priorities. Where is the strong leadership at the top to stand up and say "this is right, this is wrong, and this is why." And I don't mean from the Pope, my friends.

[muck-raker]

05:24 PM on 05/14/2010

holly....let me count the ways. What is on everyones lips today is..Colonial Expansionism

see if you can see it....

http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

[hollybork]

03:58 PM on 05/15/2010

Hey Muck raker - thanks for this link! It is something. Just read it. More depressing confirmation that we have met the enemy - and it is u.
Fanned.

[Chopin]

08:47 PM on 05/14/2010

holly, that's a terrible moral indictment of American society and leadership today. The top executive presidency is a wholly owned subsidiary and captive of the corporate military-industrial-complex apparatus. The last President who tried to break loose and turn it back was murdered in broad daylight on November 22, 1963, with no accounting and justice. Since that tragic day, American leadership and moral fiber had been steadily degenerating ever since, and American society had been suffering a pathological paralysis and slow spiritual death, with no resolution in sight.

[hollybork]

03:36 PM on 05/15/2010

I am with you totally. Read the new book by James Douglass "JKF and the Unspeakable" addresses the very compelling evidence of the assassination to which you refer. I have thought for some time that Pres. Obama is aware of this and is trying to steer clear of martyrdom. I am convinced the CIA (with some complicity from the FBI and the military industrial complex) assassinated JFK, as they did Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. In fact, the MIC has been infiltrating every aspect of the federal bureaucracy since Eisenhower.

Your comment about the moral indictment of the society as a whole is so poignant, and you are absolutely right. Naomi Klein's withering analysis of history in "Shock Doctrine" which is so tragic that it is hard to read, I take to be the truth. It is depressing to recognize how far down the path we have actually gone in turning into an immoral, manipulative and ruthless world empire. I have few illusions left about that.

[azhermit]

01:56 PM on 05/14/2010

but, but, we're the good guys.

[maserati2]

01:55 PM on 05/14/2010

Are we now engaged in a "War of a Thousand Years" since the atrocities happening in our name will never be forgiven or forgotten? Depending on battlefield justice for a convenient way to dispose of captives, guilty or innocent, exposes us as a nation without scruples or conscience. Has our conversion to a corporate-owned population stolen the last of our humanity?

The hatred engendered by the actions taken in our name, whether by our own military, Blackwater, or the all-but-total corporate confiscation of the world economy will color our futures for generations to come. Since we do not have the means to take out anyone and everyone with a grudge against us and the will for revenge, ladies and gentlemen, we are officially skreuued.

[Giveadamn]

11:58 AM on 05/14/2010

Besides the obvious solution of getting the hell outta there, Mr. Hersh has not followed his criticisms up with any solutions, just rhetoric.

[Princeton123]

12:11 PM on 05/14/2010

He is a reporter. In US reporters report!

[Mahi Joe]

01:03 PM on 05/14/2010

His role is that of a reporter and as such he did his job.

[muck-raker]

11:53 AM on 05/14/2010

here is a great article by Mr. Hersh of New Yorker talking about Prez Bush in his attempts to promote incursions into Iran, regime change. Mr Gates also has a lot to say here...do not miss this as it is highly likely that the USA will attack Iran sometime in the near future.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

[lungfish]

10:29 AM on 05/14/2010

You have to wonder what the victims of 911 would say about all this nonsense that has been undertaken in their names, all the violence and the deaths of innocents, all the abuse and money and hubris, all the pain...

Seems to me that our politicians have shamelessly abused the memory of these people in so many base and degrading ways.

Now we add more horror to the story in a seemingly unending litany of atrocity after abomination...

[tallen]

09:56 AM on 05/14/2010

No proof, no evidence, some "anecdotal" hearsay.
The headline doesn't even bother to add "alleged" to the allegation.

[viper234]

01:32 PM on 05/14/2010

This is the reporter who broke the Abu Ghraib prison abuse story in 2004, you know the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist who actually goes out and spends a lots of time researching news story. He's been reporting since 1959 and isn't one of those "heads" sitting in the tv reading press releases from corporations and the government, then passing them off as news reporting. Hersh is a real journalist, a rare commodity in the world of news these days. He checks his sources numerous times, not to mention the rigid scrutiny his submitted articles get from those very tough editors at the New Yorker magazine. When Hersh speaks up, he's got the sources and the research to back him up. Whenever someone of this caliber speaks out, the mob will try to tear down his credibility, or his integrity, even his sanity. That's always a sign that the truth has found its way past the tv into the public realm.

[Chopin]

12:24 AM on 05/15/2010

Excellent thoughtful factual comment.

[Mensch99]

09:03 AM on 05/14/2010

Hersh says :One only hopes he [Obama] has a game plan.

Keep in mind the mess created by Reagan and Bush:

Who are the Afghan Taliban? They are tools of elements within the Pakistani military. The Pakistanis effectively controlled the day-to-day operations of the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. Pakistanis only left the day that US bombing began. This helps to explain the rout of the Taliban.
The Pakistanis generally accept that the Afghan Taliban are good. Once the US leaves they hope to regain control of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis do not, however, like the Pakistani Taliban, which presents a threat to stability in Pakistan.

One more point; Ronald Reagan’s CIA funded the Pakistani ISI intelligence agency to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. This worked, but it left the country in a barbarous state of clashing warlords. When the Pakistani supported Taliban restored order it left the Pakistanis in the Afghan driver’s seat.
The Afghans remain resentful of their perceived abandonment and fear a repeat.

This is a real mess and I hope Obama can find a way out.

[muck-raker]

08:55 AM on 05/14/2010

Amir Mir reports in The News that the 60 US drone attacks in Pakistan have killed 687 civilians for the 14 al-Qaeda suspects they were targeting. If you’ve ever wondered why so-called ‘human rights’ groups are treated with such scepticism (if not disdain) outside the US and EU, see this statement from a New York Times report on the drone attacks: “Marc Garlasco, a former military targeting official who now works for Human Rights Watch, the international advocacy group, said the drones had helped limit civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the Air Force uses them to attack people laying roadside bombs and to attack other insurgents.”

LAHORE: Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent

[Chopin]

12:50 PM on 05/14/2010

Implication of increased senseless killing + wanton destruction is inherently built into robotic drone warfare. When there's no real cost in blood, and questionable adversaries are mere shadows and blips on computer video screens, death decisions are remotely routinely executed at joystick control buttons thousand miles away, like at video arcade games, the consequences raise not only logistical, tactical, technological questions of warfare, but about moral nature + purpose of warfare. In robotized society and nation, fleet of drones can be turned around bloodlessly inperceptibly to control + kill indiscriminately in urban America when social order breaks down from imploding financial-economic infrastructure.

Operational statistics of robotic drone warfare in Afghanistan + Pakistan would imply deaths of civilian population in hundreds of thousands in pursuit of few hundred leaders and men in insurgency combat. If each individual man, woman, child has extended families + social network of hundreds, those robotic drone warfare statistics mean incurring unyielding hatred + implacable enmity of entire population and country in matter of several years for long time to come. Some of that implacable abiding hatred for revenge will return in future into urban American cities and populations. Let no thinking, sensible Americans profess ignorance + incomprehension when the next incidence of 9-11 occurs. Chalmers Johnson warns America in his books:--
"Blowback"
"Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic"
"The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic" http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chalmers+johnson&x=23&y=27
.

[muck-raker]

01:31 PM on 05/14/2010

Chopin....Great post.....I can see that you and I are LOOKING down the road and WHEN the pendulum swings the other way, and it always does, it looks mighty bleak to me...will the stock market tank and the banksters leave the country with their gains..and mobs break out, looting. And yes another 9-11 is right around the corner. we are vulneralble...another depression....and of course...."Hey brother can you spare a dime"

[RhinnoSnot]

03:11 PM on 05/14/2010

Great Post, too bad you do not know what you are talking about.

The new Reaper drones carry the same air to ground, surgical strike, munitions as the F-16. This includes Hell Fire, Side Winder and, now JDAM’s. They now have radar system built into the JDAM for more precision ground movement targeting. In other words, not carpet bombing from B-52s.
.
Unlike an F-16, the Reaper system can stay above the target for hours for better identification. The video feed can be viewed by not only the pilot and sensor operator, but a team of analyst, intelligence chiefs, military brass, and high ranking administration officials. This can be viewed in real time, before the trigger is pulled. The F-16 needs to fire and get back to base.

[vinny]

07:35 AM on 05/14/2010

BRING THEM ALL HOME!!!

[spion]

02:36 PM on 05/18/2010

We want to finish the job first, we're not quitters.