Monday, March 28, 2011

Rolling Stone Magazine writes in graphic detail about the crimes of Jeremy Morlock and the men of Bravo Company.

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock with Staff Sgt. David Bram
From Rolling Stone:

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.

He was a smooth-faced kid, about 15 years old. Not much younger than they were: Morlock was 21, Holmes was 19. His name, they would later learn, was Gul Mudin, a common name in Afghanistan.

He was wearing a little cap and a Western-style green jacket. He held nothing in his hand that could be interpreted as a weapon, not even a shovel. The expression on his face was welcoming. "He was not a threat," Morlock later confessed.

Morlock and Holmes called to him in Pashto as he walked toward them, ordering him to stop. The boy did as he was told. He stood still.

The soldiers knelt down behind a mud-brick wall. Then Morlock tossed a grenade toward Mudin, using the wall as cover. As the grenade exploded, he and Holmes opened fire, shooting the boy repeatedly at close range with an M4 carbine and a machine gun.

Mudin buckled, went down face first onto the ground. His cap toppled off. A pool of blood congealed by his head.

The loud retort of the guns echoed all around the sleepy farming village. The sound of such unexpected gunfire typically triggers an emergency response in other soldiers, sending them into full battle mode. Yet when the shots rang out, some soldiers didn't seem especially alarmed, even when the radio began to squawk. It was Morlock, agitated, screaming that he had come under attack. On a nearby hill, Spc. Adam Winfield turned to his friend, Pfc. Ashton Moore, and explained that it probably wasn't a real combat situation. It was more likely a staged killing, he said – a plan the guys had hatched to take out an unarmed Afghan without getting caught.

This article is very in depth and NOT for the faint of heart. However it is a must read for those who want to REALLY understand what this once angry young hockey player from Wasilla, Alaska participated in while representing our country overseas.

For those who have come here to defend Jeremy Morlock in the past, while claiming how misunderstood he is, your task will become substantially more difficult after people read exactly what went on in Afghanistan.

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.

Morlock does NOT come off as a hesitant participant here, but rather a cold blooded killer who callously treated the Afghans he killed as big game trophies rather than human beings.

Then, in a break with protocol, the soldiers began taking photographs of themselves celebrating their kill. Holding a cigarette rakishly in one hand, Holmes posed for the camera with Mudin's bloody and half-naked corpse, grabbing the boy's head by the hair as if it were a trophy deer. Morlock made sure to get a similar memento.

The article contains many more horrible, heartrending details, including the fact that this "kill team" operated out in the open and did nothing to hide their activities.  As well as the fact that they were not the only ones conducting these "staged killings" and that the Army is complicit in a massive cover-up.

77 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:09 AM

    God Bless the Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, they seem to have the cajones to report and vet and do their job as unapologetically as the Fourth Estate is meant to do.

    Because of Rolling Stones Magazine, I know more about John McCain's bullshit narrative that he carefully constructed over decades. Because of Vanity Fair, it tipped the scales to where Sarah Palin just needed an excuse to chuck her Chief Executive position for greener pastures.

    There is nothing lame about RS and VF.

    Oh and Sarah? Past associations are fair game? Get ready for the lightening and the thunder coming your way in your palling around with witch hunters, secessionists, American 'sovereigns' / terrorists and war criminals.

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  2. Anonymous5:17 AM

    This is why, no matter how dire the need for soldiers is, the military needs to screen applicants. Much in the same way we should screen for gun ownership.

    We in no way have right to judge and it's sad that Jeremy's the only participant who has been singled out when obviously the issue is not where you come from but what you've experienced personally that leads you to that place.

    I hope officials soon recognize the need for appropriate screening and interviewing when faced with decisions for employment (I almost wrote casting. You can tell I work in entertainment and see war/fighting as nothing more than a sick film)

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  3. Anonymous5:22 AM

    Just read the entire article and having a hard time keeping my breakfast down. No offense to decent Alaskans, but what the hell is in the water up there?? There are bad seeds everywhere, but it sure seems that poor Alaska has had more than their fair share. It is amazing the kind of people the paylins seem to pal around with. Just WOW!

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  4. Anonymous5:32 AM

    Jeremy and those like him are why I lose patience with an otherwise dear flag-wrapper friend who screeches death to the infidel terrorists. I salute all the honorable members of our armed forces, but at least I allow that there are some who are beneath contempt. Jeremy Morlock should never walk free again.

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  5. Anonymous5:43 AM

    A disturbing article, indeed. I can tell you right now that when my son grows up, if he tells me he wants to join the military, I will do everything I can to prevent him from doing so. We hear about this kind of thing happening over and over, it's not just "a few bad apples"!

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  6. Anonymous5:47 AM

    Anon @ 5:17 am: "This is why, no matter how dire the need for soldiers is, the military needs to screen applicants. Much in the same way we should screen for gun ownership."

    The purpose of the military is to kill. Do you honestly think they want to screen out aggressive people who have no compunction against killing?

    No, the answer is to find a way other than war. We've been at war with one country or another, more or less, for hundreds of years. It hasn't helped, the world is more dangerous than ever. I don't know if in our lifetime we will find the answer, but I sure as hell hope a team of psychiatrists is out there somewhere working on a way to alter people's inclinations towards violence.

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  7. WakeUpAmerica5:47 AM

    I don't remember anyone defending the actions of Morlock. I do recall many of us being concerned about the actions of the military. It is a fact that the military does not provide the mental help that soldiers need even when the soldier specifically asks for help. It is a fact that the military trains soldiers to provide unquestioning obedience; although I don't know if that comes into play in this situation. It is a fact that soldiers, particularly marines, are ridiculed and overlooked for promotion for any sign of weakness especially if it involves anything to do with mental health.

    It is also a fact that there are numerous pockets of evangelical self-righteousness throughout the officer ranks. These "holy" officers are known for imposing their values and prejudices on the impressionable young men and women under their command and punishing those who will not conform. Jeremy Morlock may be 100% a sociopath, but by golly the military certainly provides the medium for that kind of sickness to thrive, and it is time something was done about that as well. Morlock's actions and those of the soldiers at Mei Lai are not aberrations.

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  8. Chenagrrl5:48 AM

    So this is a product of the commonsense, small-town people. Isn't he one of our "American fighting men and women who are keeping us safe?" We need to get out of Afghanistan and apologize profusely on the way out.

    And it is time for Wasilla to do more than a little navel gazing. Time to go back to being Palmer-Wasilla, an afterthought.

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  9. cowardice: taking cover behind a wall to chuck a grenade at, and open fire on, an unarmed 15 year old.

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  10. Anonymous5:56 AM

    from the RS article:

    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."

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  11. Anonymous6:10 AM

    looks like Todd Palin sitting there.

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  12. Anonymous6:11 AM

    Anon @ 5:47 AM: "Jeremy Morlock may be 100% a sociopath, but by golly the military certainly provides the medium for that kind of sickness to thrive, and it is time something was done about that as well. Morlock's actions and those of the soldiers at Mei Lai are not aberrations."

    I agree with you 100%.

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  13. Anonymous6:17 AM

    This is one reason why an all-volunteer army is a bad idea. I think everyone should have mandatory service (with approrpiate alternatives for religious and health reasons). Right now the military has a self-selection process that rules out certain personalities. Then when recruitment is unsufficient, it attracts more of those not suited for miliary service.

    It's not that most people who volunteer are problematic. I'll assume most aren't. It's that we need a mix of poets and physicists and muscle men (not that those three or mutually exclusive). We need aggressive people and those who are risk-avoidant. I wish I could find the article that argues this so much better than I can.
    (and BTW, I have VERY mixed feelings about MY kids being subject to this mandatory service. But it does seem to me to be good for the culture/society).

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  14. Anonymous6:20 AM

    This is what becomes of a military that has low low recruiting standards. Where some of these people, like Jeremy Morlock and others in Bravo Company, would have ended up in jail for non-lethal offences, the US government gave them guns and set them loose on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. I truly believe that Abu Ghraib and Bravo Company are merely scratching the surface of the atrocities committed by a military that doesn't screen recruits. I'm sure there'll be more to come. And just wait until you have to deal with some of these ratcheted up crazies when they come back to live among you. Imagine Jeremy Morlock in your midst had he not been caught and convicted. Scary.

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  15. Anonymous6:20 AM

    I can't praise Rolling Stone enough for daring to report the ugly truth about war. Most Americans just don't want to hear about how our military and CIA screw with other countries.

    Just because someone wears the patch of an American Flag (or a flag pin) on their should doesn't mean they are the "good guys".

    As for Morlock, he should have NEVER passed Army screening. I blame Donald Rumsfield for letting him in, and Jeremy Morlock for abusing his military status.

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  16. Anonymous6:26 AM

    Does this mean Sarah palled around with terrorists and criminals?

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  17. Anonymous6:27 AM

    The guy was in trouble before he was in the military. Burned his wife with a cigarette. That's a malicious psychopath. He was a killing machine waiting to be unleashed. It's too bad the military is so desperate for warm bodies. The minute he burned his wife with a cigarette they should have done a psych evaluation and discharged him.

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  18. Anonymous6:40 AM

    You know, my first impression was, these guys should all get the death penalty. But after reconsidering, no, they killed Afghanis in Afghanistan, they should be turned over to the Afghanis to do with what they wish.

    Rick

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  19. Anonymous6:43 AM

    Anon @ 6:17 am: "It's not that most people who volunteer are problematic. I'll assume most aren't. It's that we need a mix of poets and physicists and muscle men (not that those three or mutually exclusive). We need aggressive people and those who are risk-avoidant."

    There are many countries where service is mandatory, and the same sick shit continues to go down. Or do you honestly think Israeli troops don't do some fucked up things to Palestinians?

    War is not the answer. We need to employ behavioral engineering to subdue the human instinct for violence once and for all. I don't even care anymore if this compromises human "freedom." I feel increasingly less free in an increasingly violent world.

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  20. Randall6:48 AM

    "We in no way have right to judge..."

    No - fuck you - we DO have EVERY right to judge someone who does anything that is as despicable as what Morlock and Co. did.

    Most of us are NOT as sick and twisted as these boys and THAT'S what gives us the right - maybe even the RESPONSIBILITY - to judge. And further, then ACT upon that judgment to insure acts such as these don't happen again.

    We absolutely need to exercise judgment - it's our responsibility as rational human beings.

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  21. Anonymous6:51 AM

    I just read the entire article and I cannot convey my personal distress.

    To paint our entire honorable military with the soiled brush these sociopaths have dipped into the blood of innocents would be wrong and serve no purpose.

    But it certainly begs the question that when we train young, sometimes unstable and unprincipled, people to kill, then strip others of their humanity, then put those soldiers into a situation where boredom is rampant, drugs are readily accessible and status is defined only by evidence of a kill, what can we expect?

    There legions of reasons why war is hell, this is only one of them.

    We need to leave this region of the world before our entire next generation is infected by this mental illness.

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  22. Anonymous7:01 AM

    My ex husband was military and it wouldn't shock me if the do get orders from higher up to do this kind of stuff: guys like Morlock get into power.

    That article is painful to read. Yesterday I smashed some video games that my sons were playing and made them read ADN's article on Morlock. The games had them shooting people as they captured something, but they were looking down the scope of a gun. I then went ballistic when they said, "It's only a game!" No: games are fun where you don't pretend to kill people. I also told them that they will be spending weeks on meaningless chores if they bring up joining the military again.

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  23. Anonymous7:05 AM

    The army should have screened him. The army should have kept better control over him. The army makes people do crazy things.

    I know someone who did three tours of duty in Afghanistan, and he didn't do any of the things described in Rolling Stone. And, he is just the kind of dufus that would have fallen in with that bunch. Maybe he knew better.

    It is the fact that the killings were planned that makes them crimes. I can understand soldiers entering a village, afraid of who is hiding behind a door or a wall. At the slightest sound, they start to fire, thinking that it is in self defense. Innocent civilians are killed. There are, sadly, many episodes like that from war.

    This was planned. They got as much pleasure from the planning as from the killing. At the point when Morlock came home after killing #2, he had a chance to think about and change his mind. I can't think of one good excuse for killing innocent people except that these guys were bored, maybe under the influence of some substances, and didn't have enough to do. What a waste of human life!

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  24. Anonymous7:06 AM

    Thanks to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld war machine that got our military spread too thinly then lowered standards too quickly to get enough people to throw at the problems they created.

    It will take years for the military to regain respect, to weed out the miscreants, to retrain its officer corps. I cannot believe the military is still allowing evangelical officers to bullying folks into attending services and then allowing behavior such as this.

    Truly, things are upside-down, inside-out. We as a people have not paid attention for too long. We don't seem to want to be bothered. We want those who volunteer, regardless how vile, inept, or mentally ill they are, to do our dirty work. We praise the military without objective evaluation.

    We set the military up to do whatever it wants until we get shocked into reality. We as a people need to accept some responsibility for these horrors. It seems we just don't give a damn or care enough to pay attention and to admit that the military is no better than the society from which it draws.

    Shame on it. Shame on us. Our media glorifies violence. We've allowed the NRA and gun manufacturers to ride roughshod over our common sense and use fear to make us acquiesce to making guns commonplace and the use of guns more common.

    We have to step up and demand a more civilized approach to living. We should demand the military reinstate guidelines to prevent more Murlocks from joining and staying in the military.

    Those found unfit to serve should be put through mandatory mental health treatment.

    How anyone would willing want their son or daughter in the military as it is now, is beyond me. Talk about putting them in harm's way --- from our own people.

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  25. Anonymous7:11 AM

    It makes me SICK that Morlock's plea agreement will have him out in less than 25 years. That psychopath should rot in prison for the rest of his worthless, miserable life.

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  26. London Bridges7:11 AM

    Perhaps you will recall the scene in Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" movie. Arlo is taking his army physical and decides to act insane so he won't be inducted. He starts jumping up and down yelling "I want to kill. I want to kill, kill, kill! The Army shrink then starts jumping up and down with him, yelling, "Kill. kill, kill." Finally the shrink asys, "You're our man!"

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  27. Anonymous7:12 AM

    So, Murlock only got 24 years for this and all the other crimes? That is a travesty, even given he ratted-out others. Twenty-four years for the lives of innocents, for drug use, for other abuses - goodness, he is going to very dangerous when he gets out. I doubt he will get the medical treatment he needs because it is much too late.

    I wish the amoral little creep and all his buddies who are found guilty of these crimes were sentenced to life in prison or executed.

    His parents must be deeply ashamed and grieving - but what about the mothers and fathers of those other boys and men? People matter, even when their governments are at conflict. People do not become less human simply because country has been deemed an enemy. When someone is unarmed and not a threat, how is killing them justified?

    I hope Morlock's wife gets away from him and his family. I hope he doesn't get out early on "good behavior." There is nothing he can do now that will make up for his crimes. We just have to keep and his ilk away from the rest of us.

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  28. Anonymous7:14 AM

    I imagine the usual suspects will raise an outcry about how Rolling Stone is compromising our "national security" by publicizing what's going down in Afghanistan. My response is that these people who want to cover everything up are compromising our national soul.

    Seriously, when you read that American soldiers actually contemplated tricking children to their deaths by tempting them with candy, you better be gripped with outrage and determination to fix the cancer of sadism that is creeping through our military. If your reaction is outrage at Rolling Stone instead, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

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  29. Anonymous7:15 AM

    @ anon6:17 AM = yes, I wouldn't want my sons/grandsons in the military either, so having a mandatory enlistment does not feel good to me at all. however, i have read about the downfalls of having a volunteer army - which could lead not only to more of the wrong personality types, but also an easily influenced militia....what to do?... strict screening...how?...

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  30. There are some officers who need to come before a Court Marshal. Where was the company commander, for example? Who is the higher command is responsible for this lax supervision. My nephew just came back from Afghanistan (Marine). He said they couldn't even shoot at a dog without permission from the higher ups.

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  31. Anonymous7:27 AM

    It sickened me to read what they did so callously to that boy. Sick. So much for our troops representing the best of America.

    Hey Gryphen, there is a great exclusive interview with Geoffrey Dunn in the San Fran Chronicle online about his upcoming Palin book. He slays her and calls it as it is. Have you seen it?

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  32. If Morlock HAD been screened, and rejected, he would have simply gone to Blackwater and applied there. Then he never would have even gone to trial.

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  33. Anonymous7:33 AM

    It sickened me to read what they did so callously to that boy. Sick. So much for our troops representing the best of America.

    Hey Gryphen, there is a great exclusive interview with Geoffrey Dunn in the San Fran Chronicle online about his upcoming Palin book. He slays her and calls it as it is. Have you seen it?

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  34. London Bridges7:34 AM

    It's Martial.

    If you are in the military and you object to the crimes against humanity the military often commits, and you try to do something to prevent these crimes you become like Bradley Manning thrown in solitary confinement with no hope of ever being released alive.

    Any didcussion of these crimes should include horror at how we are treating Bradley Manning who acted like I would want my children to act in similar circumstances.

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  35. wakeUpAmerica7:36 AM

    Randall, we have no right to judge because we don't know all the facts. To try anyone on the pages of a blog based on limited media information and bias is wrong. When you're sitting in the jury box or in the court audience to hear every piece of evidence, then you have a right to judge. I will be surprised if we as readers have been privvy to one tenth of the facts of the case. We can speculate and analyze, but we have no right to judge based on the limited info we have.

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  36. Anonymous7:37 AM

    Jeremy and friends are twisted and sick people.

    25 years in brig is not enough.

    RS article is what should be in MSM press and on TV...not the watered down bullshit fed to dumb American public.

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  37. Anonymous7:42 AM

    It frightens me that there are people like Jeremy and his friends defending our country. Off topic but in the article it says that they were guarding the poppy fields. That was the late Pat Tillman's complaint, he joined the service to defend his country, not poppy fields, and Donald Rumsfeld had him murdered for complaining about it.

    Nice porn stache Jeremy and his Sgt. have growing on their lip, NOT!

    http://sarahpalinhasaserpentsheart.blogspot.com/

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  38. yukonark7:44 AM

    It was said that, upon surveying the carnage of a Civil War battle, an anguished Robert E. Lee said: "It is good that war is hell; else we grow too fond of it." Unfortunately, we have crossed that line - we have not only grown too fond of war; we have grown bored with it.
    And now, we reap the whirlwind.

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  39. Anonymous7:45 AM

    According to the confessions on which the article is based; they weren't just killing innocent Afghans;

    6 of them together beat and threatened to kill one of their own who spoke up about his room being used to smoke hash (Stoner).

    It was only after a doctor questioned Stoner as to how his injuries were sustained that the story of the killings began to leak out.

    These men are not fighting to defend anyone's freedoms, and they certainly aren't making the world any safer for Democracy.

    SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.

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  40. Anonymous7:46 AM

    I read about Morlock's domestic abuse months ago and I thought this was most telling about his character.

    While the debacle being part of the "kill team" is certainly more horrific, one still has room to imagine that these trained killers went off the rails due to their youth and the stress of an untenable situation.

    It's one thing to strike out at a spouse in spontaneous anger/passion,but the attack rises to a whole new level to learn that he held a cigarette to her chest and BURNED her (multiple burns, I believe). That shows sadism and I don't believe it can be excused by the horrors of war.

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  41. Anonymous7:47 AM

    Anonymous said...
    Does this mean Sarah palled around with terrorists and criminals?

    6:26 AM

    ABSOLUTELY! i posted an an article about it on my blog.

    http://sarahpalinhasaserpentsheart.blogspot.com

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  42. The military used to have recruiting standards that would have prevented these stupid animals from entering, but then, Morlock otherwise would have been running around Wasilla by now armed to the teeth. He might even be in with the current militia indictees. When mama raises psychopaths there's going to be hell to pay somewhere.

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  43. Anonymous8:04 AM

    My husband's father, a WWII vet infantry captain, said that the best infantry man was someone who you could not let roam the civilian streets. Seems to me Morlock and pals fit this description to a tee. They should never see the free light of day. Ever.

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  44. London Bridges8:33 AM

    Jeremy is eligible for parole in seven (7) years.

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  45. Anonymous8:35 AM

    wakeUpAmerica said: "Randall, we have no right to judge because we don't know all the facts. To try anyone on the pages of a blog based on limited media information and bias is wrong."

    We don't know all the facts, but much of what we do know is based on actual and damning video testimony of Jeremy Morlock. He flatout confesses what they did. So do others involved. Much of the media coverage is based on these taped, existing, real confessions.

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  46. Anonymous8:36 AM

    Many of these enlistees are simply people that are otherwise unemployable. The military doesn't seem very discerning when it comes to enlisting soldiers, as they are in massive need of warm bodies to fight in these multiple conflicts that we have initiated in the Middle East. I firmly believe that some parents willingly allow their miscreant and misguided children to enlist because #1 it's a job with an accompanying paycheck and #2 because they actually believe that a dose of military discipline will "fix" their poorly behaved children.

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  47. Anonymous9:04 AM

    This is a horrible thing for an American to do, he has disgraced our country, his family, his friends and himself.

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  48. emrysa9:06 AM

    randall @ 6:48 sez:

    "We absolutely need to exercise judgment - it's our responsibility as rational human beings."

    I agree 100%.

    someone who intentionally kills an innocent person is sick. someone who intentionally kills an innocent person and then poses with the dead body for the cameras is extremely sick. am I judging the people who do such things? hell yes I am.

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  49. betsy s9:19 AM

    You just know they're going to make a movie about this. Morlock and his team will be portrayed as "Bad Apples" and the officers will be shocked, shocked!!

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  50. Anonymous9:24 AM

    8:36 I must add to your rational, the parents are too cheap or uninterested to get the help for their children themselves. It's easier to shove the kid into the military to cover up for past sins (Palin) or bad behavior (Morlock) than to do the work yourself, either from the start or when intervention might do some good.

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  51. California Dreamin'9:42 AM

    I'm pretty hard to shock, but I found this entire article extremely disturbing. I think the last couple of articles sent the biggest shivers:

    "Toward the end of Morlock's interview, the conversation turned to the mindset that had allowed the killings to occur. "None of us in the platoon – the platoon leader, the platoon sergeant – no one gives a fuck about these people," Morlock said.

    Then he leaned back in his chair and yawned, summing up the way his superiors viewed the people of Afghanistan. "Some shit goes down," he said, "you're gonna get a pat on the back from your platoon sergeant: Good job. Fuck 'em."

    American exceptionalism at its best there....

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  52. Anonymous9:47 AM

    Got in a little hometown jam
    So they put a rifle in my hand
    Sent me off to a foreign land
    To go and kill the yellow man

    Born in the u.s.a., I was born in the u.s.a.
    I was born in the u.s.a., born in the u.s.a.


    Bruce Springsteen

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  53. Anonymous11:01 AM

    Isn't it Sarah who says we are to be judged by the friends we keep?

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  54. California Dreamin'11:40 AM

    Why are they guarding the poppy fields anyway?? Poppies are used to make heroin!! I used to work for a federal agency that interdicted illegal drugs. It is a well known fact that Afghanistan is largest producer of opium/heroin. I smell something else going on here!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Triangle_(Southeast_Asia)

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  55. California Dreamin'11:42 AM

    Here's another link:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

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  56. Anonymous12:26 PM

    Oh my God this is just unbelievable that young men could do this. These are psychotic murderers. I couldn't even read the whole description. Who among us have young sons - that could read that and not get nauseous, and grieved for that Afgani mother. Who would support or excuse Jeremy Morlock and Holmes? Did Holmes also have brain injuries? This excuse from his lawyer does not justify what they did.

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  57. Anonymous12:29 PM

    THIS is the type of atrocity our country will be seen as/remembered for. But we must remember, the corpora-terrorists (can we say military-industrial complex?) don't care about country; they have no country, they are multinational globalists.

    There are monsters/terrorists among us like Jeremy Morlock. Instead of dealing with them here, we send them to war so they can kill people they and the government see as less than human, as animals. Don't let the embarrassed apologies from the military fool you. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg of atrocities. And they are well aware of it.

    Are you aware that the military is now recruiting by luring in the sickos with extremely violent video games?

    End the wars. Period. We are not responsible for the world. Nor for the corpora-terrorists' profits.

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  58. Anonymous1:03 PM

    To california dreamin',

    They are guarding the poppy fields because the CIA is heavily involved in drug trafficking. The Taliban had nearly eradicated the growing of heroin poppies.

    Afghanistan has heroin, oil, gas, and lots of minerals - all with no environmental/governmental restrictions. Conquer Afghanistan, and all those riches are open to the multi-national corporations. Like in Iraq; the first thing to happen after we stopped fighting a 'hot war' in Iraq was the big oil companies bidding on the oilfields.

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  59. Anonymous1:15 PM

    I read the chilling story. The closest way to wrap my head around the story was serial killers.

    How sad is it that a magazine called Rolling Stone is the go to source for investigative journalism.

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  60. Anonymous1:34 PM

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Massacre:_The_Convoy_of_Death

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  61. Anonymous2:14 PM

    I read the RS article. Whatever minimal sympathy I had for these young men is gone.

    They just practiced wanton murder for the fun of it.

    They were being out foxed by the Taliban so they just decided to kill because they needed to kill.
    Same thing happened in Vietnam.

    Same thing happens in all wars. There are thousands of reasons to not get into wars and only one or two reasons to make war.

    The drain of the military budged is the single most dangerous threat to the survival of this country and its freedoms. It is bleeding us to death financially, it is as flagrantly wasteful of raw materials and human lives as it is of the Constitution, and our laws.

    We are an fairly isolated nation and our neighbors are friendly. What the hell are we doing with bases and wars going on all over the world?

    Was 9/11 horrible. Of course it was. But is self immolation at the hands of our own military a sensible reaction to it?

    ReplyDelete
  62. Anonymous2:27 PM

    One of the things that the article talked about was the striping of clothing from the bodies of all the dead and photographing them. Also scanning their finger prints and irises.

    This is right out of Pol Pot and the Nazi death camps (bet the gulags and Idi Amin did the same thing) both of who kept meticulous records and for Pol Pot photographs of their victims.

    Our military and our government get more and more Nazi all the time, it is disgusting and frightening because they know history as well as any of us and they choose to go down those paths anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Anonymous2:47 PM

    Anonymous Anonymous said...
    This is one reason why an all-volunteer army is a bad idea. I think everyone should have mandatory service...
    6:17 AM

    I think there should be universal two years of service for all Americans,(the Swiss require two year military from everyone, I think even females.) right out of high school or maybe college for those that go straight to college.

    Not just military service but social services, apprenticeships, and training that enures that a minimal level of literacy is gained by all Americas and some level of training is given to all Americans so that young adults have job skills not just the dean end eduction we give now.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Anonymous2:47 PM

    These disgusting behaviors are taught or role modeled . What kind of a monster poses with a persons dead body . I am a war Vet .
    It never once entered my mind nor any one elses mind that I served with , to display our dead enemies as trophies .Much less innocent fellow human beings .

    I respected our enemy combatants and civilians .
    These are evil animals and should all be imprisoned for Life. I am ashamed for our country .

    ReplyDelete
  65. onething4:19 PM

    He is a sociopath. The army probably attracts them, especially since their attitude is so lax and they don't care what the soldiers do to people so long as the public doesn't find out. Only the ones who embarrass the army get punished.

    ReplyDelete
  66. onething4:28 PM

    The sentence I would give is to drop him off in the same field where he killed the boy, wearing light clothing, and where the boy's family await him.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Anonymous4:33 PM

    Morlock should be executed. As more and more stuff comes out about this guy, it just makes me shake my head...especially knowing he was a friend of the Palin group. Sick group!!!

    ReplyDelete
  68. Anonymous8:14 PM

    London Bridges agree with you about Bradley Manning IMO he was a whistleblower and should have been treated as such.It is a travesty of justice that Manning is being treated like he is for embarrassing some politicians and most likely all but one of these murders,even with a 24 year sentence might get out in 7 years to walk among us with no one watching.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Anonymous11:17 PM

    This guy was burning his wife with cigarettes BEFORE he was deployed. No matter how rotten the army may be, it found a willing participant in Jeremy Morlock. Neither the army nor the war created this sick, twisted wife beater. They simply gave him the opportunity and (alleged) incentive to take his sadism to the next level.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Anonymous3:06 AM

    Zelda del West said...
    cowardice: taking cover behind a wall to chuck a grenade at, and open fire on, an unarmed 15 year old.

    5:52 AM

    Yes. I wonder if Morlock started out by burning bunnies as a little boy. I wonder if people in the tundra thought it was "cute".

    ReplyDelete
  71. Anonymous3:07 AM

    This is one reason why an all-volunteer army is a bad idea. I think everyone should have mandatory service

    no thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Anonymous3:25 AM

    PM

    Anonymous said...
    To california dreamin',

    They are guarding the poppy fields because the CIA is heavily involved in drug trafficking. The Taliban had nearly eradicated the growing of heroin poppies.


    this is true.The Taliban had all but stopped poppies....CIA can't have that now, can it.

    This country is not what we think it is. Our military objectives are not what we are told they are. The sooner americans wake the fuck up, the better chance we have of saving ourselves. We are fucked. 9/11 happened not by who/what we were told. It is all part of the plan. And don't call me a conspiricy theorist. The original story they want you to beleive is the conspiracy fools.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Anonymous3:25 AM

    25 years in brig is not enough.


    ***

    no, it isn't, and he'll be out in 7 years to kill again.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Anonymous3:28 AM

    agree with above poster that has happened to Bradley Manning is inhumane. He is held in solitary without even having a trial. He is going insane for informing about war crimes.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Anonymous3:29 AM

    Was 9/11 horrible. Of course it was. But is self immolation at the hands of our own military a sensible reaction to it?

    2:14 PM

    Dude 9/11 was allowed to happen with the full cooperation of parts of our government. Do you remember Rumsy stating 0m 9/10/01 that some trillions of dollars are missing...and the records were in the part of the pentagon that got damaged the next day? the only part of the pentagon that had recently undergone upgrades to sustain a missile hit??
    Fuck me man. Americans need to do some research. The missing trillions were used to stage 9/11,
    It is hard and people do not want to believe it, but 9/11 needs more examining. Of course it will never happen. We are too brainwashed and wrapped up in our flags.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Anonymous3:36 AM

    Peeps,
    Do some research on the transafghanistan pipeline to help understand why US needed to be in Afghanistan and why we had 9/11 to insure we got a hold in afghanistan.

    This shit is a giant military industrial complex corporate chess game and we are just pawns.
    Time to hijack the game.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Beldar7:35 AM

    The soldiers are responsible for their own behavior but how can we justify putting them in this awful position in the first place?

    Please, President Obama, all of these kids, even the bad ones, need to be back home NOW. End this war, sir.

    ReplyDelete

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