RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians

RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (Full Version)

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Owner59 -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 2:42:58 AM)
Of course you are......just make sure it`s the same differing opinion......[:D] I don`t see why a death penalty MUST be involved.......I doubt a possible execution had any deterrent affect on this GI`s conduct. Killing the soldier would be more about blood lust than anything else and I don`t think we should make blood-lust a government priority. As to what happened and why....... I`ve read that Camp Leatherneck has had morale problems for a while now.Not sure if it`s the reason for the shooting but it certainly contributed. And I read the alcohol was involved.These men and women are under probably the most stress of any US soldier at the moment. IMO,rotating and major RR is in order for our GIs and maybe a management shake-up too.

Politesub53 -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 3:02:07 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic Then let his lawyers make the argument at his court martial. This seems the sensible way forward. In the UK there is a plea of "diminished responsibility" if there are mitigating circumstances. Looking at how news of his injury was released, it seems someone higher up was looking to lessen any adverse effect. Given we have now had this happen, on top of the Koran burning and US soldiers urinating on corpses and the "trophy killings", we may not exactly be winning hearts and minds.

TheHeretic -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 10:01:34 PM)
Here's an interesting tidbit that has come out. At the time he turned himself in, he asked for a specific lawyer. Ted Bundy's lawyer, as it happens. Sounds to me like he's competent to participate in his own defense.

farglebargle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 10:28:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DarqueMirror quote: ORIGINAL: farglebargle I think we can have our own trial and execution just fine. Court martial can be done before lunch, two appeals at an hour each, and the President can sign the death warrant by fax. His unit could assemble and hang him tonight. Easy Peasy.... I'm not really inclined to execute one of our own who we sent back to a combat zone with a traumatic brain injury, especially when there are "civilians" over there who would and do kill people over a book. I am not sympathetic to the excuses of a child murderer. He can explain it to whatever gods he believe in. Maybe they'll care. Consider this. If he ever regained his sanity, wouldn't he be compelled to commit suicide due to the overwhelming grief caused by his realization of what he's done? When you have a mad dog, you put it down. More importantly, if you don't enforce discipline and actually execute a few people to make the point that you WILL execute people when necessary, how to you teach the dual lessons of 1) They will follow through and 2) Their honor demands it?

DarqueMirror -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 10:30:22 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: farglebargle I am not sympathetic to the excuses of a child murderer. He can explain it to whatever gods he believe in. Maybe they'll care. Consider this. If he ever regained his sanity, wouldn't he be compelled to commit suicide due to the overwhelming grief caused by his realization of what he's done? When you have a mad dog, you put it down. Humans aren't dogs. And I'm less inclined to "put down" one of our soldiers for killing members of a society who deem murder and acceptable consequence for burning a book.

farglebargle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 10:35:53 PM)
If you don't execute this guy, how can you claim to be any better than 'those animals'? In fact, in their Justice system, he'd be executed already, and they're all laughing at you for not having the balls to even put this animal to death with the open and shut case there is.

tweakabelle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 10:41:29 PM)
quote: Looking at how news of his injury was released, it seems someone higher up was looking to lessen any adverse effect. Given we have now had this happen, on top of the Koran burning and US soldiers urinating on corpses and the "trophy killings", we may not exactly be winning hearts and minds. Are there any hearts and minds left to be won? After 10 years of constant atrocities by Western forces, the incidents you've listed, the antipathy towards foreign occupation generally, is there a snowballs' hope in hell of winning over the locals? And winning their support for what? The world's most notoriously corrupt government, headed by a member of the world's largest heroin smuggling operation, hated by his own people. Karzai is so remote from Afghanis that his personal security detail is exclusively foreign. It seems the distrust is mutual. The mission there is over and was lost years ago. The only remaining questions to be settled are the exact details of the withdrawal. Another excellent example of Bush's Folly.

Hillwilliam -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 11:05:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: farglebargle If you don't execute this guy, how can you claim to be any better than 'those animals'? In fact, in their Justice system, he'd be executed already, and they're all laughing at you for not having the balls to even put this animal to death with the open and shut case there is. Don't we claim to be better than them? How can we claim moral superiority if we do exactly as they do. I'm not taking the death penalty off the table but I'm not making it mandatory either.

Aswad -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/15/2012 11:58:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DarqueMirror [Most] humans aren't dogs. There... fixed it for you. ETA: Not that I'm in favor of putting down dogs, either, except as a last recourse. Treatment might be a good place to start, though it's pretty clear by now that the quality of their soldiers isn't really one of the priorities of the US military, so I'm guessing they'll shaft him instead of doing anything meaningful. To some people, lives are just a currency to be spent. Health, al-Aswad.

DarqueMirror -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 2:30:44 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: farglebargle If you don't execute this guy, how can you claim to be any better than 'those animals'? In fact, in their Justice system, he'd be executed already, and they're all laughing at you for not having the balls to even put this animal to death with the open and shut case there is. And in our justice system, he'd get due process and a trial before being "put down." That's why we are better than "those animals." That and the fact that we don't kill over a damned book.

DarqueMirror -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 2:33:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad There... fixed it for you. ETA: Not that I'm in favor of putting down dogs, either, except as a last recourse. Treatment might be a good place to start, though it's pretty clear by now that the quality of their soldiers isn't really one of the priorities of the US military, so I'm guessing they'll shaft him instead of doing anything meaningful. To some people, lives are just a currency to be spent. Health, al-Aswad. They already shafted him. As many deployments as this guy's been on mixed with a traumatic brain injury and he's just carelessly tossed back into the fray without regard for what the injury might do to him. There are many veterans from the Vietnam and Gulf Wars who snap and just punch someone for no reason....or have nightmares and wake up choking their spouse to death. And they (some) don't have the added diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury. This guy was hung out to dry long before this incident ever happened. As have many of our soldiers and other servicemen.

MrBukani -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 3:03:43 AM)
I wonder why some headlines use the word service man instead of soldier. He didnt do you a great service. I also wonder how many allied troops have comitted warcrimes and have come into publicity. Like the germans, english and dutch. Any ideas?

Aswad -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 3:07:44 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri Will Libya bite us in the ass? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, "probably." That's a pretty sturdy limb, considering that Libya was sort of heralded as one of the great hopes that the region might see some real progress eventually, and that nothing is done in Syria, where there is definitely better reason to intervene. (When the Arab world can agree that the West is welcome to apply military force in an Arab country, you know it's time to roll.) quote: Shit. It's actually a tribute to the US military that this never happened before (buncha teenagers sent halfway round the world, given weapons, and pushed into a foreign land where they're hated), but the ramifications will be horrible. The Taliban has announced that it will attack in revenge. That was sarcasm, right? We've been shipping teenagers halfway round the world, with weapons, into foreign lands where they're hated, and not seeing them shoot up the natives for fun. The attitudes differ, significantly. To quote a soldier commenting on the differences in doctrine: "Amid all the rounds they let loose- in the wrong direction- I wonder whether the Americans even heard the single shot with which I killed the enemy rifleman that was attacking the camp." Recruiting and training needs to improve if you aspire to raise the capabilities of your armed forces. Nobody doubts your brute strength. But every country in the first world has enough brute strength to make it a moot point. If two clash, both die. The question is whether you have capabilities that extend to more than clearing space and filling graves, and your priorities seem to be shifting the answer toward an increasingly firm and resolute 'no'. Incidentally, while TBI may excuse him, it does not excuse whoever made the call to put him back on duty. I am quite familiar with the potential for such injuries to cause someone to act in a tragic way: a friend was shot dead by her father when he succumbed to brain cancer. He did his wife and other kids, too. If I understood correctly, he killed himself when he came to and realized what he'd done. Shit happens. Less shit happens when you lay off the laxatives. As someone in this thread pointed out: a man known to have recently suffered a TBI, thought to have PTSD, picked up his weapon and walked alone out of the camp into hostile territory, during a sensitive phase of a delicate mission, without anyone stopping him or even insisting on accompanying him. What part of that seems like a good idea? No current military is mature or capable in an absolute sense, of course, so maybe it's really unreasonable to expect quality assurance to have made it into the process yet. It's not like war calls for the same kind of attention to detail as making food, drugs, houses or software. QA guy just paged me about the sarcasm dripping onto the spare ribs. The question is: do they go to the packing plant, or the reject bin? Maybe I'm just grumpy today... Health, al-Aswad.

farglebargle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 4:14:44 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam quote: ORIGINAL: farglebargle If you don't execute this guy, how can you claim to be any better than 'those animals'? In fact, in their Justice system, he'd be executed already, and they're all laughing at you for not having the balls to even put this animal to death with the open and shut case there is. Don't we claim to be better than them? How can we claim moral superiority if we do exactly as they do. I'm not taking the death penalty off the table but I'm not making it mandatory either. I don't see how you CAN'T execute this piece of shit. But we're going to give him is trial in the morning, two appeals at an hour each, maximum and wait an hour for the President himself to sign the death warrant. All nice and legal.

farglebargle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 4:15:52 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DarqueMirror quote: ORIGINAL: farglebargle If you don't execute this guy, how can you claim to be any better than 'those animals'? In fact, in their Justice system, he'd be executed already, and they're all laughing at you for not having the balls to even put this animal to death with the open and shut case there is. And in our justice system, he'd get due process and a trial before being "put down." That's why we are better than "those animals." That and the fact that we don't kill over a damned book. You're acting like I didn't explicitly specify the UCMJ's procedure for executing someone earlier. Why is that?

tweakabelle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 4:22:33 AM)
I wonder if the individual who committed these horrendous murders would have behaved in such a blood thirsty fashion if the thugs who butchered some 24 Iraqi civilians at Habitha had not escaped virtually scot free? I am speculating here but it's hard to believe that the murderer was unaware that the military authorities are going to view one's petty genocides as a matter of little consequence. It's hard to believe that the events at Habitha and the grossly criminally lax treatment handed out by the military justice system to the perpetrators of that massacre went un-noticed among the GIs serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. If murder is on someone's mind, is the fact that previous massacres of the type being contemplated - going back to Calley's sentence in Vietnam - have been treated with indulgence likely to deter them or harden their resolve? And, if there is any merit in the above, doesn't that make a lot more than one individual bear the responsibility for the awful events under discussion.

tweakabelle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 4:26:59 AM)
sorry double post

farglebargle -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 6:04:36 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle I wonder if the individual who committed these horrendous murders would have behaved in such a blood thirsty fashion if the thugs who butchered some 24 Iraqi civilians at Habitha had not escaped virtually scot free? I am speculating here but it's hard to believe that the murderer was unaware that the military authorities are going to view one's petty genocides as a matter of little consequence. ... And, if there is any merit in the above, doesn't that make a lot more than one individual bear the responsibility for the awful events under discussion. I feel as if this guy was failed by: His NCOs, his officers, and the entire chain of command. If only they had taught him the lesson that it's wrong to go out and murder XXXXXXXX and that if you do choose to do that, you're going to hang -- and hang quickly -- as a lesson to everyone else, that you don't go murdering XXXXXXXXX.

Kirata -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 9:51:17 AM)
Over the long course of the action in Afghanistan, this and a couple of other related incidents have been aberrations. Contrast that to the fact that in many parts of the Islamic world, Afghanistan being a case in point, it is perfectly understandable and even sometimes commendable for people to commit murder, even wholesale murder, anytime somebody is fucking "offended." Frankly, in that kind of environment I'd have gone aberrant a lot sooner than this soldier. I mean hey, he was offended. Fuck'em if they can't take a joke. K.

Nosathro -> RE: U.S. Serviceman shoots Afghan civilians (3/16/2012 10:46:27 AM)
There are many reports on this. Right now he is either on the way or at Fort Leavenworth, he now has a civilian lawyer, very expensive one, who paying the bill? In my career working with mentally ill, when they are confronted with their behavior none has asked for a lawyer as this Sergeant was reported to have done. If you look historically at the Military Justice system when it comes to such crimes in Iraq and Afghanistain, is very poor. The last one I know of was a Marine who ordered his men to shoot first and ask questions later, 7 civilian were killed including children, he was convicted of "Delection of Duty" no jail time, no reduction in rank or pay, in fact no punish at all to speak of. The Army is moving to find a way out of this, this guy will walk away as did so many.

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