WASHINGTON DC: US troops and their allies will shoot Islamic Statemilitants in the face, beat them to death with shovels or drop bombs onthem if they don’t surrender, the US military’s most senior enlisted memberhas said.
In an eyebrow-raising set of postings on social media Tuesday, CommandSergeant Major John Troxell warned that IS members who refuse to quit willbe dispatched with “extreme prejudice,” including via a small shovel knownas an entrenching tool.
“If they surrender, we will safeguard them to their detainee facility cell,provide them chow, a cot and due process,” Troxell wrote on Facebook.
“However, if they choose not to surrender, then we will kill them withextreme prejudice, whether that be through security force assistance, bydropping bombs on them, shooting them in the face, or beating them to deathwith our entrenching tools,” he added.
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The post featured a photo of a US soldier holding a shovel and, in caseanyone was in any doubt about to slay a man with a small spade, Troxellposted a diagram on Facebook on Wednesday explaining exactly how to do so.
Troxell’s chest-thumping remarks quickly attracted a slew of commentary,mostly supportive.
One detractor said on Twitter the message was “bad optics.”
“No, that’s exactly the message that soldier(s) need and love to hear,”another user responded.
Troxell’s blunt language comes amid a toughening of rhetoric against ISunder President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
Where then-President Barack Obama said “we will degrade and ultimatelydestroy” IS, Mattis has espoused a campaign of “annihilation.”