After their return from Afghanistan, British units destroy all electronic data that relates to their activities there, the UK Ministry of Defence has said. As a result, there is practically no documentary evidence of the daily presence of British troops in Afghanistan, which, in the opinion of human rights activists, looks a lot like “covering tracks”.
The lawyers a significant number of Iraqi citizens, who have filed suits against British servicemen for serious alleged misconduct in 2003 during the British presence in Iraq, have been faced with the consequences of such practices. In the course of litigating these claims, it turned out that a significant body of information about the identifies of people who gave orders at lower levels or took part in local operations was missing from the archives of the British Ministry of Defence. In light of emerging media information, that British units destroy all electronic data about their presence in Afghanistan, the UK Defence Ministry has stated that the agency has no approved processes for storing data about the everyday presence of troops in global hot spots.
For this reason, the military simply cannot guarantee the absence of blank spots in documents pertaining to the actions of certain units in Iraq or Afghanistan. Such reasoning is not particularly compelling – and that’s putting it mildly. What’s more, such actions inevitably prompt thoughts that the UK wants to leave as few traces of its presence in Afghanistan as possible.
It seems that the sad experience of the recent US-British foray into Iraq has caused London to draw some conclusions and as a result, destroy electronic traces of its Afghan presence. It looks like British servicemen have something to hide about their actions in the country. Such notions are certainly supported by the behavior of Americans in Afghanistan. Suffice to mention the investigation that is currently taking place in the U.S. into the conduct of five American soldiers, who killed peaceful civilians for the sake of entertainment. The soldiers surrounded the dead bodies with guns to show that they were merely acting in self-defense, cut off various body parts to keep as “trophies” and took photos against a backdrop of their victims’ bodies.
These photos found their way to the media and the Internet and caused huge public outrage and protests all around the world. One might think that London is concerned about similar exposure and is trying to destroy traces of the unwholesome actions of British personnel in Afghanistan in advance. Although at the official level, the British leadership continues to state that its military brings peace and safety to the country.
To believe David Cameron, British soldiers are not losing their lives in Afghanistan in vain. But who can convince the relatives and friends of 339 British servicemen, who have been killed in Afghanistan over the nine years of the war? Bold official statements on the topic are certainly insufficient.
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