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Us Soldier Slaughters 16 Afghanis


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Thoughts? Booo USA? Who should be held responsible? Is it just random and largely unpreventable like a workplace shooting? I'm not familiar with modern military law. What will and/or what should this soldier's punishment be?

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An American soldier went on a house-to-house shooting spree in two villages in southern Afghanistan early Sunday, Afghan officials said, killing 16 people in what Afghanistan's president called an "unforgivable" crime.NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the soldier acted alone and turned himself in after opening fire on civilians. U.S. President Barack Obama called the killings "tragic and shocking," and offered his condolences to the Afghan people in a phone call to his counterpart in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, the White House said.But the attack is likely to further more anger at international forces following deadly riots over the burning of Qurans by U.S. troops."The Afghan people can withstand a lot of pain," Prince Ali Seraj, the head of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan, told CNN. "They can withstand collateral damage. They can withstand night raids. But murder is something that they totally abhor, and when that happens, they really want justice."In a statement issued by his office, Karzai said the killings took place in the district of Panjwai, about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's major city. Haji Agha Lali, a member of the provincial council, told CNN the soldier had attacked four houses in two nearby villages."We call this an intentional act," Karzai said. He said the dead included four men, three women and nine children, calling the killings "acts of terror and unforgivable." Another five people were wounded, he said.Capt. Justin Brockhoff, an ISAF spokesman, said the wounded Afghans were being treated in ISAF facilities. The allied command did not give its own estimate of casualties.Brockhoff said officials do not yet have a motive for the shooting, which is under investigation by both NATO and Afghan officials. And Maj. Jason Waggoner, another ISAF spokesman, said the soldier "was acting on his own."There were no military operations in the area, either on the ground or in the air, at the time, according to two senior ISAF officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. They said only one soldier, an Army staff sergeant, is believed to have been involved.A U.S. military official told CNN later Sunday that the suspect is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. The official said the soldier is assigned to a Special Forces unit.A third ISAF official said Afghan troops spotted the soldier leaving his combat outpost around 3 a.m. Sunday and notified their American counterparts. The U.S. military did an immediate headcount, found the soldier was missing and dispatched a patrol to go look for him, the official said.The officials said they have no knowledge at this point whether he had any previous medical or mental health issues in his record.The patrol met him as he returned and took him into custody. He said nothing, and it was unclear whether they knew what had happened, the official said.
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Sad situation.Depending on the perspective he could be a disturbed person who went off the deep end or some people could view him as no different than a Terrorist.

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It's just a side effect of a decade long war. If you put enough people in horrendous conditions for long enough, eventually one of them is going to snap and do something horrific like this. It's a rare but expensive cost of war. And I don't mean that in the sense that it should be excused because it's a part of war. I mean that those who support war are supporting actions like this and are claiming that these types of actions are justified by the goals of the war.My only hope is that this becomes a catalyst for us getting the heck out of there faster. There's nothing more to do there but waste lives and treasure.

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He should be Court Marshaled and if found guilty be given the Death Penalty....and I'm not a big fan of Capital Punishment. This is a great example of how the US is different from our enemies. People like All-In will never condemn the terrible actions of their own people. Those who kill innocents and blow up markets and Pizzerias. This Soldier is an abomination. But an exception to the rule. An unacceptable exception.People will argue that "we" somehow don't belong there. But we would never argue that scum like the psychopathic coward who shot up Fort Hood doesn't belong in the US. He too is just another unacceptable exception to the rule. He doesn't define Muslims any more than this American Service Member defines America.

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There's nothing more to do there but waste lives and treasure.
Do you think that there was ever anything to do but waste lives and treasure?
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People will argue that "we" somehow don't belong there. But we would never argue that scum like the psychopathic coward who shot up Fort Hood doesn't belong in the US. He too is just another unacceptable exception to the rule. He doesn't define Muslims any more than this American Service Member defines America.
Umm the Fort Hood shooter was born in the US. You may want to rephrase your statement as I'm reading it that a Muslim can't be an American.He also is a product of the US military. He basically spent his adult life in The Army.
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Thoughts? Booo USA? Who should be held responsible? Is it just random and largely unpreventable like a workplace shooting? I'm not familiar with modern military law. What will and/or what should this soldier's punishment be?article continued
Of course the guy should pay.But lets alter the scenerio. If this guy was a Saudi muslim, who claimed these people were aiding the americans, he would be celebrated in many quarters of the middle east.
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It's just a side effect of a decade long war. If you put enough people in horrendous conditions for long enough, eventually one of them is going to snap and do something horrific like this. It's a rare but expensive cost of war. And I don't mean that in the sense that it should be excused because it's a part of war. I mean that those who support war are supporting actions like this and are claiming that these types of actions are justified by the goals of the war.My only hope is that this becomes a catalyst for us getting the heck out of there faster. There's nothing more to do there but waste lives and treasure.
I'm with LLY on this one.
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It's bad press, certainly, but it's just someone snapping. Frankly, given the stresses that mental stresses soldiers are under, and the high powered weapons available to them, it's surprising this does't happen more often.

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The ideal situation would be handing him over to the locals, but that would undermine a lot of procedures the military lives by, so a firing squad is the next best option. Bad-bad-bad if he gets to appeal for two decades. Justice needs to be very swift here. We just need to get our men the hell out of there. This military industrial complex bullshit has got to end.

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It's bad press, certainly, but it's just someone snapping. Frankly, given the stresses that mental stresses soldiers are under, and the high powered weapons available to them, it's surprising this does't happen more often.
The ideal situation would be handing him over to the locals, but that would undermine a lot of procedures the military lives by, so a firing squad is the next best option. Bad-bad-bad if he gets to appeal for two decades. Justice needs to be very swift here. We just need to get our men the hell out of there. This military industrial complex bullshit has got to end.
agree on both.
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Yeah, lots of agreement in this thread. Doesn't the situation seem a little too cut-and-dry for anyone though? I have no idea if that's the actual saying by the way. It might not be, and I look stupid.But could anything other than a set-up be responsible for tim, LLY, brv and AmScray agreeing on something? I'm not saying it is a full set-up necessarily - probably a guy did snap. But I'm definitely suspicious of the whole 'acted alone' and 'turned himself in' aspects. Certainly seems like this is a convenient way to:i) punish an American soldier for atrocities commited on Afghanis so the US can say they're doing something about it, and even Americans can't get madii) push for an earlier exit, as political winds allow

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I'm as pro mission as they come, and the last attacks on US service personal for the 'koran burnings' made me say "Let's pull them out and leave them to the misery they are destined for.So I don't think this incident is the catalyst, more like this incident is going to be come more frequent based on the realities of the mission and our true ability to affect change.

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I'm as pro mission as they come, and the last attacks on US service personal for the 'koran burnings' made me say "Let's pull them out and leave them to the misery they are destined for.So I don't think this incident is the catalyst, more like this incident is going to be come more frequent based on the realities of the mission and our true ability to affect change.
I love you BG, but goddamit, this effecting change is pure bull shi t over there. As I said in a previous post, it took us a civil war 2 world wars, and 200 years to get were we are at. Anybody who thinks we can get these people to accept democracy over night after living by the sword for a thousand years is just delusional.
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So I don't think this incident is the catalyst, more like this incident is going to be come more frequent based on the realities of the mission and our true ability to affect change.
My goodness. That someone of your political slant and background would come to this position shows how very little support for this war there is left. I hope we all learned the lessons of this war the next time a potential quagemire pops up. But I doubt we will. Wars should have clear, attainable objectives. Clear, attainable exit strategy. With out them, history has shown time and again what kind of folly these police actions are. Years ago I predicted that Afghanistan would be an unwinable mess, because essentially we're trying to win an ideological war via the gun. That is basically impossible. I think there are only two options that make logical sense in fighting a war against militant tribal islam. One is not engaging in this kind of war at all. The other is escalating it to a genocidal level, and actually wager wars of annihilation against the radical islamic. Since we don't have the will to do the latter, I think it has to be the former. Because this third path, of trying to nation build with special forces is just all kinds of insane. Even if you assume that our cause is just and we're bringing democracy and social justice and the saving light of our lord and savior to the unwashed masses, no matter what we do, we're a foreign occupying army. And an occupying army is always going to have a bitch of a time gaining any support. I mean, this is a basic geopolitical concept, Machiavelli talked about it in prince 600 years ago. The longer we stay, the more people will be polarized against us. The longer we stay, the more it advances the opposite of our goal, IE makes Afghanistan less safe, more unstable, more anti west. And also the sheer folly of trying to turn this country into a modern 21 century state is a complete joke. The tribal society shares more in common with the age of the Mongol Conquests than it does with a post industrial democracy. Cliffnotes: either we should slaughter them all or leave them alone. Because it's the worst kind of hubris to think we can change them.
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I was never real big on the war in Afghan. I was more supportive of Iraq.We made deals with poppy growers, the corruption there is so ingrained that there is no form of trust to be had, and they have almost no oil.We could have droned the taliban all day. Boots on the ground were never my first choice.But you are right about one thing; We should either use the weapons our tax dollars have bought, or not go war. Tying the soldiers hands and making their lives secondary to our worry about what france might think of us if we just let an Abrams take out a Mosque filled with people shooting at us, is the worst kind of foreign policy we can have.War sucks, it is evil and it is completely void of decency. Quit acting like we can learn from the techniques of the 17th century lines used by Napoleon.Do whatever needs done to not go in, but once you go in, bring your entire arsenal to bear.

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I was never real big on the war in Afghan. I was more supportive of Iraq.We made deals with poppy growers, the corruption there is so ingrained that there is no form of trust to be had, and they have almost no oil.We could have droned the taliban all day. Boots on the ground were never my first choice.But you are right about one thing; We should either use the weapons our tax dollars have bought, or not go war. Tying the soldiers hands and making their lives secondary to our worry about what france might think of us if we just let an Abrams take out a Mosque filled with people shooting at us, is the worst kind of foreign policy we can have.War sucks, it is evil and it is completely void of decency. Quit acting like we can learn from the techniques of the 17th century lines used by Napoleon.Do whatever needs done to not go in, but once you go in, bring your entire arsenal to bear.
so true, when are we going to learn. do it right or stay stay home. the same way we should be paying for these wars with oil taken from the region...not making a profit, just breaking even.
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My goodness. That someone of your political slant and background would come to this position shows how very little support for this war there is left. I hope we all learned the lessons of this war the next time a potential quagemire pops up. But I doubt we will. Wars should have clear, attainable objectives. Clear, attainable exit strategy. With out them, history has shown time and again what kind of folly these police actions are. Years ago I predicted that Afghanistan would be an unwinable mess, because essentially we're trying to win an ideological war via the gun. That is basically impossible. I think there are only two options that make logical sense in fighting a war against militant tribal islam. One is not engaging in this kind of war at all. The other is escalating it to a genocidal level, and actually wager wars of annihilation against the radical islamic. Since we don't have the will to do the latter, I think it has to be the former. Because this third path, of trying to nation build with special forces is just all kinds of insane. Even if you assume that our cause is just and we're bringing democracy and social justice and the saving light of our lord and savior to the unwashed masses, no matter what we do, we're a foreign occupying army. And an occupying army is always going to have a bitch of a time gaining any support. I mean, this is a basic geopolitical concept, Machiavelli talked about it in prince 600 years ago. The longer we stay, the more people will be polarized against us. The longer we stay, the more it advances the opposite of our goal, IE makes Afghanistan less safe, more unstable, more anti west. And also the sheer folly of trying to turn this country into a modern 21 century state is a complete joke. The tribal society shares more in common with the age of the Mongol Conquests than it does with a post industrial democracy. Cliffnotes: either we should slaughter them all or leave them alone. Because it's the worst kind of hubris to think we can change them.
well said
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I do not like commenting on political issues....butWhat happened was wrong yes, but I want to know the rest of the story. The media tends to bring out the worst points, nothing about what may have led to this. Did the soldier have any medical conditions/psychological issues in his history? What happened hour by hour with him during the 24 hours before the incident?He should be punished, yes. Im not defending this soldier but if afghans occupied our country (not that they ever could or would) the same thing would happen to us. Frankly, throughout history during occupations of nations, not only by the United States, incidents like this this have happened before. The fact an American was behind the gun makes it primetime news.

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I do not like commenting on political issues....butWhat happened was wrong yes, but I want to know the rest of the story. The media tends to bring out the worst points, nothing about what may have led to this. Did the soldier have any medical conditions/psychological issues in his history? What happened hour by hour with him during the 24 hours before the incident?He should be punished, yes. Im not defending this soldier but if afghans occupied our country (not that they ever could or would) the same thing would happen to us. Frankly, throughout history during occupations of nations, not only by the United States, incidents like this this have happened before. The fact an American was behind the gun makes it primetime news.FloridaCapo
Welcome to FCP.I think that there have been reports that the soldier had a serious head injury in a previous tour of duty.I think this is news because a lot of innocent civilians and children were slaughtered.
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he should be handed over o the afghan people for justice.
In this case since his action was not in anyway condoned by his position as a US Service Person, I'd be fine with letting the Afghans try him.
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I do not like commenting on political issues....butWhat happened was wrong yes, but I want to know the rest of the story. The media tends to bring out the worst points, nothing about what may have led to this. Did the soldier have any medical conditions/psychological issues in his history? What happened hour by hour with him during the 24 hours before the incident?He should be punished, yes. Im not defending this soldier but if afghans occupied our country (not that they ever could or would) the same thing would happen to us. Frankly, throughout history during occupations of nations, not only by the United States, incidents like this this have happened before. The fact an American was behind the gun makes it primetime news.FloridaCapo
9 Children Dead. 3 Women Dead.4 Men Dead.Bodies shot and burned.Civilians all.By the hands of an American Soldier. Yeah, that qualifies as "Primetime News" in my book. When a scumbag terrorist blows up a market, that makes the news. Rightfully so. When a scumbag terrorist blows up a pizzeria, that makes the news. Rightfully so.And yes, when a Soldier who is supposed to be protecting civilians in a foreign country kills 16 of those civilians, that makes the news. Rightfully so.And as much as I hate the over the top anti-American demonstrations, I'll understand them when they happen in response to this, even when they inevitably turn violent. I'll be interested to see if the uproar is anywhere near as large as when we accidentally burnt a few books.
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