The Duke of Sussex has said some British soldiers were not ‘necessarily’ supportive of military efforts in Afghanistan.
Prince Harry took part in a livestreamed conversation with author Dr Gabor Mate earlier today, who said he did not necessarily align with the West during the conflict.
Harry responded: ‘One of the reasons why so many people in the United Kingdom were not supportive of our troops was because they assumed that everybody that was serving was for the war.
‘But no, once you sign up, you do what you’re told to do.
‘So there was a lot of us that didn’t necessarily agree or disagree, but you were doing what you were trained to do, you were doing what you were sent to do.’
The Q&A session comes a month after the release of Harry’s explosive memoir Spare, during which he opened up about his time spent in the armed forces as a helicopter pilot during the war in Afghanistan.
Harry said that he flew on six missions that resulted in ‘the taking of human lives’, something of which he is neither proud nor ashamed.
Writing about his time in Afghanistan, the Prince describes watching video of each ‘kill’ when he returned to base, as a nose-mounted video camera on his Apache helicopter recorded each mission in full.
He says that in the ‘din and confusion of combat’ he saw the insurgents he killed as ‘baddies eliminated before they could kill goodies’.
It is not possible to kill someone ‘if you see them as a person’, he says, but the Army had ‘trained me to ‘other’ them and they had trained me well.’
He adds that: ‘I made it my purpose, from day one, to never go to bed with any doubt whether I had done the right thing…whether I had shot at Taliban and only Taliban, without civilians in the vicinity. I wanted to return to Great Britain with all my limbs, but more than that I wanted to get home with my conscience intact.’
He says that in war soldiers do not usually know how many enemies they have killed, but ‘in the era of Apaches and laptops’ he was able to say ‘with exactness how many enemy combatants I had killed. And it seemed to me essential not to be afraid of that number.
‘So my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me.’
The Duke’s remarks prompted a furious response from some corners of the Arab world, who criticised him for ‘playing into the hands’ of various regimes and suggested his admission had created a security risk.
Anas Haqqani, a senior member of the Taliban, took to Twitter following the news to criticise the Prince and called for the ICC (international Criminal Court) to summon him.
Mr Haqqani said: ’Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return.
‘Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes.
The truth is what you’ve said; Our innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders.
‘Still, you were defeated in that “game” of white & black “square”.
‘I don’t expect that the ICC will summon you or the human rights activists will condemn you, because they are deaf and blind for you.
‘But hopefully these atrocities will be remembered in the history of humanity.’
Elsewhere during the Q&A, The Duke of Sussex discussed his drug use and said marijuana had ‘really helped’ him mentally.
Speaking about cocaine, Prince Harry told Dr Dr Gabor Maté: ‘I don’t think that did anything for me.
‘It was more of a social thing, and I guess trying to get a sense of belonging, for sure.’
He added: ‘I think it also probably made me feel different to the way that I was feeling, which was kind of the point.
‘Marijuana is different, that actually did help me.’
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