(Image source: Rolling Stone)

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BY MARC STEIDLER

A military court found Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs guilty of leading a rogue US Army team that murdered Afghan villagers -- for sport.

ABC News reports this isn’t the first time the US military has seen a case like this.

“The allegations are reminiscent of the military’s darkest days in Vietnam. Again -- young GIs caught up in a difficult war, accused of widespread drug use and the killing of innocent civilians, apparently for sport or thrills.”

Euronews reports those thrills included treating the victims like game.

“Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs admitted at the Court-martial hearing he had chopped the fingers off victims and kept them as trophies ‘like keeping the antlers off a deer you shoot.’”

The court gave Gibbs a life sentence, but a writer for Indian newspaper The Hindu was shocked the sentence came with the possibility of parole after ten years.

“To anyone who has watched the Hollywood cult series ‘Predator,’ of a monstrous alien that slaughtered humans and then took their body parts as trophies, the actions of a rogue killer squad of United States soldiers in Afghanistan must have sounded familiar.”

But a member of an anti-war advocacy group tells Al-Jazeera he hopes the story will shift the conversation from soldiers to civilians.

“Oftentimes we talk about soldiers who are getting killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, we talk about the injuries like PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and all the other injuries soldiers are dealing with. But very rarely do we have the conversation about the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan who are disproportionately affected by these wars.”

Rolling Stone reports-- Gibbs is the highest ranking officer to be convicted in the case. While three others have also been convicted, it’s possible more soldiers were involved.

“Questions remain about how high up the chain of command responsibility goes, though, since there are signs that higher-ups knew what the soldiers were up to but failed to step in.”

Two of Gibbs’ fellow soldiers testified against him. Gibbs maintains the killings were in self-defense-- but the court ruled weapons found on the scene had been planted by US troops.
 

Transcript by Newsy.