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As readers of Nettertainment know, I'm a big fan of our current President. However, I'm less and less a fan of the U.S. being in Afghanistan and hope he starts/sticks to exit plans. You've got that President Karzai trying to stop investigation into his corruption, you've got interpreters who don't know the language, and now you're starting to get the freaky, evil, Casualties of War-type rogue U.S. soldiers targeting civilians and collecting fingers for sport:

Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.

According to investigators and legal documents, discussion of killing Afghan civilians began after the arrival of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs at forward operating base Ramrod last November. Other soldiers told the army's criminal investigation command that Gibbs boasted of the things he got away with while serving in Iraq and said how easy it would be to "toss a grenade at someone and kill them".

One soldier said he believed Gibbs was "feeling out the platoon".

An amazing story, if proven to be true, brutal. Read the rest, and I'm sure there's more coverage of it to come.

Bye-bye.