They are known as Delta Force, Navy SEALs, Green Berets or Rangers, and the mysterious US Special Forces have achieved cult status with many films dedicated to them.
They are always portrayed as tough soldiers who fight for good and are not easily distracted by adversity in combat. This is also the image that the USSOCOM (US Special Operations Command) would like to cultivate externally, which is obviously becoming increasingly difficult.
With incidents such as drug smuggling from Colombia, rape of minors (7 and 11 years) to alleged war crimes becoming public knowledge, a loss of confidence has been noted in the special forces.
Conditions seem to be so grave that even the Congressional Investigative Service devoted itself to this topic and spoke of “growing concerns by Congress about misconduct, ethics and professionalism” of the special forces.
And in the last National Defense Authorization Act, the Secretary of Defense was asked to review the professionalism and ethical standards of US elite soldiers.
For the Commander of the USSOCOM, General Raymond Thomas, it is clear that matters can not go on like this. After all, it’s also about the image, which has been carefully built up over decades and cultivated at a high price.
“Trust between teammates, and especially our nation, is our currency among the special forces. … We have worked long and hard over many years in the struggle to earn it. We will not allow inexcusable and reprehensible violations of this trust to erode decades of honorable service, teamwork and progress by members of the USSOCOM,” according to Thomas.
To get the soldiers back on track, General Thomas wrote an e-mail titled “Ethics and Our Culture of SOF – A Call To Action”. The e-mail was also accompanied by an Ethics Guideline to remind the men in the Special Forces that their actions could have an impact on an international level.
However, when reading this “guideline” one notices that the SOF leadership is not so much concerned about the ethical principles of their bloody craft, but rather that any possible and future offenses do not reach the general public.
The concern comes in the wake of the release of a relentless documentary about the Afghanistan war. It was made by Lance Corporal Jacob Miles Lagoze who actually produces promotional videos for the US Army. The Pentagon quickly pulled the emergency brake on the documentary.
His film had been screened at various documentary film festivals since March 2018, both in the US and in Europe during the “Marseille International Film Festival” in June 2018.
But the Pentagon intervened and the justification given by the US Department of Defense is that Lagoze’s pictures he took with the US Corps equipment belonged to the state.
The film does indeed show an unvarnished, raw view of the war in Afghanistan. In this sense, it is quite the opposite of a promotional clip.
