The Australian military is investigating its special ops forces in Afghanistan after reports of executions, Nazi flags, and initiation rites

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• Australia's special operations forces have come under scrutiny for their battlefield behavior.
• Officers allegedly took part in the execution of detainees, pressured rookies to kill unarmed men, deliberately covered up unlawful killings, flew a Nazi flag on combat patrol, and other gruesome acts. 
• The recent allegations hint at a larger systemic issue inside the Australian Military's chain of command. 

Recently, a series of disturbing allegations about the conduct of the Australian Army's special operations forces in Afghanistan have made for gruesome domestic headlines. Individually, each claim is staggering: apparent execution of detainees; reported use of so-called drop weapons, planted to cover up unlawful killings; confirmed reports of commandos flying a Nazi flag on a combat patrol; alleged "blooding" of rookies, initiation rites in which newcomers were pressured to execute unarmed men. In one particularly sadistic case, a prosthetic limb was allegedly pilfered from the corpse of a dead Afghan, only to be repatriated and repurposed as a novelty binge-drinking implement. Taken together, the allegations appear to reveal a devastating collapse of standards within Australia's special operations forces.

This is not the first time Australia's Special Operations Command has been the subject of intense scrutiny. In the last two years alone, the Australian Defence Force has commissioned no less than three internal inquiries into culture and behavior within the command, each with its own separate framework: cultural, legal, and institutional.See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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