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US officials say Army soldier suspected of shooting more than a dozen Afghans

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  • #31
    Captain Lukins and Albany Rifles have elucidated the concerns. There are many here from this sole incident. I'm also interested in how this fairly senior NCO slipped out the wire armed at 0200 hrs and started running amuck through a fairly dangerous area without raising any alarm whatsoever until well too late.
    "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
    "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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    • #32
      Originally posted by S2 View Post
      Captain Lukins and Albany Rifles have elucidated the concerns. There are many here from this sole incident. I'm also interested in how this fairly senior NCO slipped out the wire armed at 0200 hrs and started running amuck through a fairly dangerous area without raising any alarm whatsoever until well too late.
      If what I have read is correct he was spotted by an Afghan guard who alerted US officers. They did a head count or something similar. I don't recall what happened next (sorry, no time to search), but it didn't go unnoticed.
      sigpic

      Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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      • #33
        Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
        Will his superiors be charged as well? If he turns to have been unstable, what will happen to them and to the shrinks who checked him and said he is OK?

        Actually I would say the fault is less with the psychiatrists than with pressure to man units.
        I don't know how it will be measured and where the axe will fall, but they sure have some responsibility. At least negligence at work.

        Check out the outstanding work done by Daniel Zwerdling on NPR on this very topic.

        Daniel Zwerdling : NPR
        Thanks for the link. I thought it will about some fine commander and his practices, but this guy had a hell of a carrier and is a good read and a start point for the topic on hand.
        No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

        To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
          The honour of the country comes before this fuck.
          Are you 100% certain, without any doubts this soldier is guilty and things happened exactly as they are reported? I am not. MSM are in need for spectacular headlines these days. I could be wrong, but at least wont shoot anyone on site.
          No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

          To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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          • #35
            Interesting.

            Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
            I don't like your chances of the US cutting off aid. Pakistan is still getting a bundle, and there isn't anywhere near the sort of investment in US lives & policy there. I can see it being quietly scaled back over time, but cutting it off is at least as big an admission of failure as pulling out troops. Admitting failure doesn't seem to be something American governments are awfully keen to do, and everybody has had a bit of this tar baby so blaming the other guy won't work.
            Agree, the money going into afghanistan is huge in comparison to Pakistan.

            And, simply put, Afghanistan's economy cannot support a large national government with a huge army. The budget for Afghan security forces today is around $12 billion, paid for by the U.S., of course. That is eight times the amount of the Afghan government's total annual revenues.
            GPS | March 4 2012

            Thats just the defense budget, how much more is the US pouring into Afghanistan.

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            • #36
              everybody has had a bit of this tar baby so blaming the other guy won't work.
              Agreed, Astan is a horrible place for anyone to occupy, everyone who gets involved gets covered with the sticky, stinky, foul tar goo - the question I see is how long will the US roll around in the muck with this place? This incident highlights the nature of the place - one of the men we sent there get so sick of it he became a vicious child murderer. Many others have done bad things too - perhaps this one is the most upsetting? A few weeks ago some Astan soldier murdered a GI over some paper that was burned - a few defiled korans that were used to plan attacks on the prison guards... Their "leader" was "outraged" - so what is his reaction to this - exactly the same - their president values that scribbled on paper equally to the lives of their children.

              The US won't win there - no one else ever has either - leaving is the closest to victory that anyone gets in that place. What else can the US do? Commit a much bigger attrocity and nuke the place? Those people can live without any infrastructure, they willingly live by Sharia law, killing them just makes them martyrs - they believe they get to rape 72 virgins after they are martyred... There is no good that comes to anyone that invades Astan - the Soviets tried that - look how well they did. Look what happened to the economy here after we got involved there - could spending tens of trillions there and in Iraq have anything to do with that?

              We probably aren't going to see the end in an election year - realistically - Obama doesnt want to load the GOP with that projectile.
              sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
              If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Doktor View Post
                Are you 100% certain, without any doubts this soldier is guilty and things happened exactly as they are reported? I am not. MSM are in need for spectacular headlines these days. I could be wrong, but at least wont shoot anyone on site.
                I'm certain of a lot of things. He had no mission. He had no discipline. He had no permission to fire. Children are dead. At the very least, AWL if not desertion. If children were not dead, at the minimum, Discharge with Disgrace. As it stands, line the bastard up.

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by Wayfarer View Post
                  ...Funnily enough, I think Musharraf would be much more suitable than Zardari, at least intentions wrt to American/Pak/Afghani Taliban then would be much less nebulous.....
                  Musharraf is a funny chap. He was the PA COAS during 9/11. It was his ISI chief who was intercepted by the Indian agency RAW, six months prior to 9/11, ordering Omar Sheikh in Dubai to transfer $100,000, to one Mhd Atta in USA. (Omar Sheikh, it an accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case.)

                  Also, Musharraf was a brigade commander in FCNA in 1988 when Balistan went up in rebellion. He used one Mr. Osama Bin Laden and his band of merry men, and butchered about 200-300 men in Balistan to quell the rebellion. He avoided using his own troops (lesson learn't after his experience in East Pakistan in 1971).

                  Musharraf was a coy cdr in 2 SSG that was deployed in East Pakistan. His uint has the ignominy of having slaughtered their own bengali ranks of 2 SSG.

                  I would prefer Zardari, he can be bought. Musharraf will take the money and fart, as he had done for the better part of the decade that the NATO has been in Afghanistan.

                  In a scenario involving the Pak. Military and the Pak.Taliban, on which side do the ISI stand?
                  PA and ISI are on one side.

                  Your response to my earlier post was good reading and had some very valid points.
                  Last edited by lemontree; 13 Mar 12,, 05:25.

                  Cheers!...on the rocks!!

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                    Interesting.
                    Ain't it just. I highly recommend the book. Immaculately researched. Gives you a whole new perspective on some key players in the Vietnam war. Grab an updated copy, it covers the heroin trade from Afghanistan during the 80s.

                    Agree, the money going into afghanistan is huge in comparison to Pakistan.
                    I can see that being scaled back to some extent, but not cut.
                    sigpic

                    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
                      Agreed, Astan is a horrible place for anyone to occupy, everyone who gets involved gets covered with the sticky, stinky, foul tar goo - the question I see is how long will the US roll around in the muck with this place? This incident highlights the nature of the place - one of the men we sent there get so sick of it he became a vicious child murderer.
                      To be fair, I don't think Afghanistan was what did for this guy's mental state. He did 3 tours in Iraq as a sniper & was involved in a non-combat vehicle crash that left him with a brain injury. Despite that he was ruled fit for a tour of Afghanistan. I'm not qualified to comment on the extent to which the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan have stretched the US Army & its people, but I am led to believe that there have been problems. perhaps the issue this points to is a little closer to home.

                      Many others have done bad things too - perhaps this one is the most upsetting? A few weeks ago some Astan soldier murdered a GI over some paper that was burned - a few defiled korans that were used to plan attacks on the prison guards... Their "leader" was "outraged" - so what is his reaction to this - exactly the same - their president values that scribbled on paper equally to the lives of their children.
                      I think that for most of us there is a special horror to crimes against 'innocents' such as children, especially a crime as methodical as this. Agree on Karzai. Can't say I'll shed too many tears if he ends up on the wrong end of a Taliban AK. he had a chance to take his nation in a new & differnt direction & he squandered it for personal power.

                      The US won't win there - no one else ever has either - leaving is the closest to victory that anyone gets in that place. What else can the US do? Commit a much bigger attrocity and nuke the place? Those people can live without any infrastructure, they willingly live by Sharia law, killing them just makes them martyrs - they believe they get to rape 72 virgins after they are martyred... There is no good that comes to anyone that invades Astan - the Soviets tried that - look how well they did. Look what happened to the economy here after we got involved there - could spending tens of trillions there and in Iraq have anything to do with that?
                      Let Pakistan have it. they deserve it.

                      We probably aren't going to see the end in an election year - realistically - Obama doesnt want to load the GOP with that projectile.
                      Agreed. The most I feel is possible might be a committment to speed up the withdrawal. However, that would require the GOP position to soften in order to give Obama 'space'....and possibly something else going wrong. Most likely it will be 'stay the course' until after the election and possibly even beyond (unfortunately). At least 2014 is slated as an end date for this madness.
                      Last edited by Bigfella; 13 Mar 12,, 10:16.
                      sigpic

                      Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                      • #41
                        More info

                        A bit more on the incident:

                        The soldier detained for the shootings in Afghanistan was a qualified infantry sniper, a senior Department of Defense official told CNN. (See also: heightened security in Afghanistan)

                        The soldier was injured in a vehicle rollover while in Iraq in 2010, according to the official. The official described it as a non-combat rollover. He was diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) but was found fit for duty.

                        His family has been moved on to Joint Base Lewis-McChord for their safety, the official said.

                        After an Afghan soldier alerted the U.S. military at the base of the soldier's initial departure, the U.S. military put up an aircraft to search for the missing soldier. Soon after, Afghan civilians came to the gate carrying wounded civilians, the first indication the military had of the shooting.

                        When the soldier turned himself over to the search party, he immediately invoked his rights not to speak. He has been moved to Kandahar and put in pre-trial confinement, a congressional source told CNN.
                        Shooting suspect was trained sniper – CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs
                        sigpic

                        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                        • #42
                          And Benny, if you can not understand just how wrong this is I pity you.
                          Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                          Not by what he said and how he said in response to others comments. I was not reacting to his initial outburst.
                          Like Yellow said, it's fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain that I was expressing outrage over Karzai's comments. It was also obvious to me that anyone with half a brain would condemn the soldier's actions and therefore felt that it didn't need to be stated by every single person here. Strike one for me for believing people that have known me for years could think independently and know that I've condemned this kind of behavior time and time again in many different threads. Whoops.

                          Then, when BF starts trying to tell me off for my succinct and colorful criticism of Karzai in a typical and standard ad-hominem attack without even addressing my argument, I earn AR's pity. Thanks a lot, AR, I appreciate it. Strike two for me for bothering to defend my arguments, or at least request that my arguments be responded to properly and my person not be attacked instead of my arguments. Oops.

                          So what's gonna be strike three for me? Responding to AR's and BF's problems with me in the same thread they've attacked me in even though that's not the thread's topic? Or maybe I'll just be given a warning or time out for daring to reply to a Mod in a public forum even though that Mod hasn't seen fit to send me anything privately?

                          Let's see if we can toe the line here: The US soldier who did it was a scumbag fuck who doesn't deserve to be breathing the same air as other, much braver and honorable men than him. (I agree with that, and have agreed with that since the first time I read about it, but apparently people here will only feel better if every single poster expresses outrage. Gotta love the plurality).

                          Oh yeah, fuck you, Karzai.
                          Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                          Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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                          • #43
                            A much smaller figure (a third of what Fareed said) for the Afghan defense budget was mentioned by the British ambassador

                            He said the annual cost of running the Afghan security forces would be around £2.62 billion, the vast majority of which would have to be found by Western governments. Such decisions, he said, would be decided at the Nato summits in Chicago and Tokyo later this year when members of the international community disclose their future commitment to the development of the country.
                            Our big mistake was to assume we had won, says British ambassador to Afghanistan | Daily Telegraph | Mar 10 2012
                            Last edited by Double Edge; 13 Mar 12,, 16:20.

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                            • #44
                              Elsewhere there are suspicions that one man couldn't have done all this. Kill many people across a large distance and then burn bodies as well.

                              Hope this was an isolated incident and the guilty is/are punished.
                              There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t..

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                              • #45
                                i,ve read about it in few places, but i have not seen any mention of distance or that he burned bodies, do you have a link to those details???
                                "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

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