Pentagon originally said Marine killed in combat. The Pentagon confirmed late Tuesday that it is investigating the death of a 24-year-old Indiana Marine after he was shot to death in Afghanistan, allegedly by several US-paid private security contractors. The contractors, according to a fellow Marine in Afghanistan who communicated with an investigative reporter in Chicago, were Afghanis who were found with “copious amounts of opium” and had been paid by the United States as guards. “He was killed by American Hired Local National Contractors that were high on opium the morning of the 19th,” the ABC reporter quotes a friend and fellow colleague of Lance Corporal Joshua Birchfield as saying in an email message. Lance Corporal Joshua Birchfield was killed after being shot in the head Feb. 19. The Department of Defense originally reported that he died of “small arms fire” while in combat. But the story is apparently darker and more complex — raising questions of whether the Pentagon originally concealed information about the Marine's death. The Chicago Marine who tipped off the ABC reporter purportedly wrote a detailed email surrounding the circumstances of Birchfield's death. In it, he asserts that the young Marine was killed by Afghanis paid as private contractors. “These men are armed to the teeth and supposedly here for our protection,” the fellow Marine is said to have emailed. “We have been shot at by the contractors on several cases before this incident. We have been told to refrain from returning fire and attempt to identify ourselves as Marines so they stop shooting.” “They are also drug abusers,” he continued. “The shooter was found to have copious amounts of wet opium on him shortly after the shooting … we found a bag of wet opium in the compound that the contractors were using to get high.” “A mix of drugs and gray areas of loyalty between U.S. forces and Taliban seems to be the motivation behind the shooting,” he added. The Pentagon, announcing an investigation into the death on Wednesday, declined to say what exactly they were investigating. more at link… Afghanistan is the drug war. It has nothing to do with Islam, everything to do with Heroin. added by: rodstradamus
