Lede: Special forces soldier feared the elite regiment would "go down the sewer" unless he blew the whistle
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The soldier, who was assistant chief of staff for operations in special forces headquarters, said: "We were there in Afghanistan to bring law and order and human security and justice. We failed".
Giving evidence in closed sessions of the inquiry about events in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013, he added: "Right now and beyond Afghanistan, we are facing off against despotic autocracies. It seems to me to be obvious we should not sink to their level".
The senior officer, who worked closely with the most senior SAS commanders, raised the alarm about a "cancer" of illegal behaviour within a specific SAS squadron but was constantly rebuffed, transcripts of evidence - released despite objections by the Ministry of Defence - reveal.
Re: DCUK: SAS "shot toddlers in their beds", Afghanistan inquiry told
'Go down the sewer' implies there was a time when the SAS wasn't in a sewer. Here's a Crimes of Britain summary of historical examples to counter that myth:
Britain’s Sunday Times on the 2nd July 2017 published an article regarding a “rogue” SAS outfit that had murdered civilians in Afghanistan. They went on to state this SAS unit had fabricated reports to cover up their war crimes. There is nothing “rogue” about this conduct by the SAS.
In 1983, the SAS trained Pol Pot led forces which was revealed by Simon O’Dwyer-Russell in a Sunday Telegraph article in 1989. The SAS had taught the group “the use of improvised explosive devices, booby traps and the manufacture and use of time-delay devices“.
During the Black September conflict of 1970-71 King Hussein depended on Britain for his regimes survival as noted by the British Foreign Office. SAS instructors taught the Jordanian special forces who were waging a war against the PLO.
In 2011, the SAS were captured on the ground in Libya along with an MI6 agent. Their role was to work against the sovereign government. In 2017, the SAS remain in Libya. Just six years earlier in Basra, Iraq, two SAS men dressed in Arab style clothing were arrested by Iraqi police whom they had fired on. They were found to be in possession of explosives. The British responded by sending in tanks to smash down the walls of the prison they were being held in. This is nothing new for the SAS, in the late 1960s, they ran plain clothes hit squads in Aden (Yemen). The SAS would routinely dress as locals in an attempt to lure local resistance fighters where they would try and trap them and kill them.
Despite Britain’s denial the SAS were deployed to Vietnam and were most likely attached to the Australian SAS. They played a covert role and had plenty of experience from Britain’s war in Malaya – a conflict which the United States drew much inspiration from for their campaign in Vietnam.
In Ireland, the SAS carried out a number of cowardly operations. The Military Reaction Force, a British Army death squad, had SAS members working within its ranks. The most well known case is that of the Four Square laundry – a business that had been set up by the MRF to spy on Belfast residents. The MRF carried out drive-by shooting and bombings. Two SAS men were involved in this spy ring.
The SAS has a long history of carrying out covert operations which target civilians and prop up pro-British regimes. There was nothing “rogue’ about those caught murdering in Afghanistan, their only mistake in Britain’s eyes will be that they got caught. Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
nmThe last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
on December 4, 2025, 9:08 am