An investigative report in the New Yorker magazine, a partner piece to the In the Dark podcast, which looked into possible American war crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq after September 11, 2001, maintains that the “military-justice system rarely punishes perpetrators.”
The investigation said of 781 cases perpetrated against over 1,800 victims, at least 60% have been dismissed by investigators who did not believe that war crime had even taken place.
The investigation reads that, “Soldiers would return to the United States and confess—to women, health-care workers, job interviewers—that they’d murdered civilians or prisoners, but military investigators would find that the allegations couldn’t be substantiated.”
The investigation has looked for incidents such as the indiscriminate shooting of civilians, the killing or torturing of wounded enemies, and the abuse or willful neglect of detainees.
151 cases committed by 572 perpetrators have been investigated by the US military as they found probable cause that war crimes have been committed, but only 130 of the perpetrators were convicted and they rarely received lengthy prison terms, the investigation said.
“Fewer than one in five alleged perpetrators appear to have been sentenced to any type of confinement, and the median sentence was just eight months. Their commanders have not faced consequences for the crimes of their subordinates either,” the investigation said.
Among the 151 cases, 119 of them happened in Iraq and 30 more in Afghanistan while the location of the remaining two remain unknown.
The report of the investigation also indicates that 56 cases of assault count for the largest number of war crimes committed after September 11, 2001, followed by 39 cases of homicide, 30 cases of abuse, 17 cases of multiple homicide, 6 cases of robbery, 2 cases of kidnapping and one case of sexual assault.
US military members are not the only ones accused of committing war crimes in Afghanistan — members of special forces in the UK and Australia have also allegedly perpetrated crimes while in the country.
In Australia, Defence Minister Richard Marles has stripped distinguished service medals from some Defense officers over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan which happened under their command.