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

[troung]

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

US officials say Army soldier suspected of shooting more than a dozen Afghans - The Washington Post
By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, March 11, 10:49 AM

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say it was an American Army soldier who may have shot as many as 16 Afghans before dawn on Sunday in southern Afghanistan.

Officials say the U.S. military there is treating at least five wounded.


Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the incident. She said, “we are deeply concerned by the initial reports of this incident, and are monitoring the situation closely.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also has been informed of the incident.

NATO had confirmed earlier on Sunday that a U.S. service member had been detained, while Afghan officials reported that 16 people were killed including nine children and three women.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[bigross86]

Afghan president: American kills 16 in shooting

By HEIDI VOGT and MIRWAIS KHAN | Associated Press – 1 hr 46 mins ago

BALANDI, Afghanistan (AP) — President Hamid Karzai said a U.S. service member killed 16 people — nine of them children and three women — in a shooting spree Sunday that he condemned as "an assassination."

Karzai demanded an explanation from the United States, adding new tensions to a relationship already severely strained over Americans burning Muslim holy books on a base in Afghanistan. The burnings sparked violent protests and attacks that left some 30 people dead. Six U.S. service members have been killed in attacks by their Afghan colleagues since the Quran burnings came to light, but the violence has just started to calm down.

"This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven," Karzai said in a statement. He said he has repeatedly demanded the U.S. stop killing Afghan civilians.

Five people were wounded in the pre-dawn attack in Kandahar province, including a 15-year-old boy named Rafiullah who was shot in the leg and spoke to the president over the telephone. He described how the American soldier entered his house in the middle of the night, woke up his family and began shooting them, according to Karzai's statement.
NATO officials apologized for the shootings but did not confirm that anyone was killed, referring instead to reports of deaths.

"I wish to convey my profound regrets and dismay at the actions apparently taken by one coalition member in Kandahar province, said a statement from Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, the deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

"One of our soldiers is reported to have killed and injured a number of civilians in villages adjacent to his base. I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorized ISAF military activity," he said, using the abbreviation for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

An AP photographer saw 15 bodies between the two villages caught up in the shooting. Some of the bodies had been burned, while others were covered with blankets. A young boy partially wrapped in a blanket was in the back of a minibus, dried blood crusted on his face and pooled in his ear. His loose-fitting brown pants were partly burned, revealing a leg charred by fire.

Villagers packed inside the minibus looked on with concern as a woman spoke to reporters. She pulled back a blanket to reveal the body of a smaller child wearing what appeared to be red pajamas. A third dead child lay amid a pile of green blankets in the bed of a truck.

NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a U.S. service member had been detained at a NATO base as the alleged shooter. The wounded people were evacuated to NATO medical facilities, he added.

The attack took place in two villages in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar province. The villages — Balandi and Alkozai — are about 500 yards (meters) away from a U.S. base. The shooting started around 3 a.m., said Asadullah Khalid, the government representative for southern Afghanistan and a member of the delegation that went to investigate the incident.

A resident of the village of Alkozai, Abdul Baqi, told the AP that, based on accounts of his neighbors, the American gunman went into three different houses and opened fire.
"When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again," Baqi said.

International forces have fought for control of Panjwai for years as they've tried to subdue the Taliban in their rural strongholds. The Taliban movement started just to the north of Panjwai and the district was seen as key to securing Kandahar city to east when U.S. forces flooded the province as part of President Barack Obama's strategy to surge in the south starting in 2009.

Karzai said he was sending a high-level delegation to investigate and deliver a full report.

Fuck you Karzi, how's that?

[lemontree]

This kind of senseless act undoes years of painstaking work by NATO troops.

Some Afghans will now retaliate, or worse help the Taliban.

[Bigfella]

Afghan president: American kills 16 in shooting



Fuck you Karzi, how's that?

A bunch of children just got murdered in their beds & you are taking swipes at Karzai. Classy. Real classy.

[S2]

Doesn't look at all good but I'll wait for the ISAF report. I sure as hell won't be paying much attention to the Afghan government. We've prosecuted soldiers who've committed crimes...and will again where necessary. Best thing would be to get our guys out of that country and cut all funding to their government. Afghans deserve to stand on their own for whatever they believe is best.

[Bigfella]

Doesn't look at all good but I'll wait for the ISAF report. I sure as hell won't be paying much attention to the Afghan government. We've prosecuted soldiers who've committed crimes...and will again where necessary. Best thing would be to get our guys out of that country and cut all funding to their government. Afghans deserve to stand on their own for whatever they believe is best.

Aside from the tragedy for the families involved the timing of this is terrible. it would be bad at any time, but on the back of the whole koran burning mess & the way that has been used to focus efforts to push NATO out of the country it just makes it even clearer that this operation has run its course. My bet is that whoever wins the election in November will dramatically speed up the timetable for withdrawal. it may even become an election promise of some sort.

[S2]

B.F. Reply

Pete,

"...My bet is that whoever wins the election in November will dramatically speed up the timetable for withdrawal. it may even become an election promise of some sort."

Election promise? I can only hope. OTOH, I'm also completely opposed to government-to-government aid. I'm convinced our money is promoting, enabling and perpetuating mal-governance.

If this story is true, it's a heinous crime. There are other stories just as heinous, however, IMV. One that's making the rounds is the Afghan military using its aviation assets to transport narcotics-

Officials Hinder Investigation Into Afghan Air Force On Smuggling-NYT March 9, 2012

Thousands of lives would be wantonly sacrificed to enrich these men were it true. That's not the alleged crazed act of a single man against some villagers but a calculated conspiracy to inflict misery for personal enrichment.

We don't belong there and haven't since losing our direction. Neither does our money. All will be better served when we leave...and take our money with us.

[Bigfella]

[QUOTE]

Pete,

"...My bet is that whoever wins the election in November will dramatically speed up the timetable for withdrawal. it may even become an election promise of some sort."

Election promise? I can only hope.

Depends how the GOP position pans out. Gingrich is already making noises in that direction. If they start to look wobbly Obama may calculate that he can pitch to his base wihtout losing any votes elsewhere. Wouldn't bet the house on it, but still possible. For the moment 'hold the line' & 'stay the course' are the cliches de jure , but change is not impossible even in an election season..

OTOH, I'm also completely opposed to government-to-government aid. I'm convinced our money is promoting, enabling and perpetuating mal-governance.

If this story is true, it's a heinous crime. There are other stories just as heinous, however, IMV. One that's making the rounds is the Afghan military using its aviation assets to transport narcotics-

Officials Hinder Investigation Into Afghan Air Force On Smuggling-NYT March 9, 2012

Thousands of lives would be wantonly sacrificed to enrich these men were it true. That's not the alleged crazed act of a single man against some villagers but a calculated conspiracy to inflict misery for personal enrichment.

We don't belong there and haven't since losing our direction. Neither does our money. All will be better served when we leave...and take our money with us.

Hmmm...the US pumping money into a corrupt quasi-dictatorship that is smuggling heroin to sell back to Americans. That seems eerily familiar.

The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Personally I think this thing started wandering off the rails when Iraq became the big story & has never really gotten back on track since. I hoped that it might, but it hasn't. There are so many reasons to go & so few to stay. We may not have done our best, but we have done all we are going to be able to bring ourselves to do for now (if ever).

[bigross86]

A bunch of children just got murdered in their beds & you are taking swipes at Karzai. Classy. Real classy.

Yes, I'm taking swipes at a hypocritical bastard that is willing to say one thing but do another, to the detriment and to the cost of US and other soldiers' lives. He is willing to (at least tacitly) support terrorism in Afghanistan committed by the Taliban and even by regular Afghan forces, but as soon as a US soldier does it, suddenly he's all indignant. He's a piece of scum.

So far the comments here by 4 different people have included that this "doesn't look at all good", "undoes years of painstaking work", and "the timing of this is terrible". Only one, yours, says anything about the families and even that one was as a reply to S2, not in your original reply which was to take a swipe at me.

Here's a bloody idea: Get off your high horse and give your bleeding liberal heart a rest.

[Bigfella]

Yes, I'm taking swipes at a hypocritical bastard that is willing to say one thing but do another, to the detriment and to the cost of US and other soldiers' lives. He is willing to (at least tacitly) support terrorism in Afghanistan committed by the Taliban and even by regular Afghan forces, but as soon as a US soldier does it, suddenly he's all indignant. He's a piece of scum.

So far the comments here by 4 different people have included that this "doesn't look at all good", "undoes years of painstaking work", and "the timing of this is terrible". Only one, yours, says anything about the families and even that one was as a reply to S2, not in your original reply which was to take a swipe at me.

Here's a bloody idea: Get off your high horse and give your bleeding liberal heart a rest.

I'm not going to get into a fight about this. A bunch of innocents have been murdered. it may have serious implications within & even outside Afghanistan. Everybody else who chose to speak here managed to make some sort of contribution. If you think what you wrote was appropriate under the circumstances then I'll leave it to others to make their judgements.

[bigross86]

My heart is filled with joy that you've decided to stop passing judgment on me and will let others think for themselves. That's mighty large of you.

I bolded a part in the article that was a quote by the Afghani President, and then I gave a response to that. You wanna argue that point, go ahead, respond to that. Don't undermine what I'm saying in a classic ad hominem attack.

[Wayfarer]

To pull a quote from lemontree in another Afghan thread.

As per BBC, Hamid Karzai has agreed to the hardliners to impliment "taliban" laws on women freedom and similar issues.

We are back to where we started - zero.

'Worse than the Taliban' - new law rolls back rights for Afghan women | World news | The Guardian

Why bother with the sham of setting up a democracy.. I mean, America and the West didn't bother with establishing a government, let alone a democratic one, immediately after the collapse of Imperial Japan/Third Reich. Only after a considerable amount of time, was both a democracy implemented and civil administration restored to a pacified populace.

Japan - The San Francisco Peace Treaty marks the end of Allied/Western administrative control over Japan, and resumption of that nations sovereign status on April 28, 1952. 7 years
West Germany - The Federal Republic of Germany comes into existence in 1949, assuming sovereignty in 1955. (4) or in actuality, 10 years.


Comparing the domestic situations of the above two ex-American enemies and our current one leads shows us that Afghanistan, despite 11 years of occupation, is still not stable. Why bother with the farce of elections if it only serves to elect an individual who is not interested in the long-term security of Afghanistan as the U.S sees it. Why bother, clearly, if American and Allied troops are dying to preserve the status quo under which the Taliban operated, namely, selective discrimination in the legal system towards specific genders/races (Hazaras spring to mind) Stability > puppet Democratic Elections THAT yield a candidate who is as anti-ISAF as he can get away with whilst still leeching off the funding and aid.

I have no doubt if Werwolf succeeded then return of civilian control to German hands would be much longer in coming. As it is, only 3 years transpired since the fall of the Taliban, and immediately, U.S forces split their hegemonic grasp on the situation by cedeing control to an Afghani Government, and people, who clearly still doubt (and continue to doubt) the ability(not technical, but political) for America to exterminate the Taliban.

[lemontree]

Why bother with the sham of setting up a democracy.. I mean, America and the West didn't bother with establishing a government, let alone a democratic one, immediately after the collapse of Imperial Japan/Third Reich. Only after a considerable amount of time, was both a democracy implemented and civil administration restored to a pacified populace.

Japan and Germany are very different from Afghanistan.

The Japanese & Germans - were/are an educated peoples. The facist governments that they had seen is nowhere near of what Taliban was/ is.

The Taliban is not a creation of the Afghan people, it is a Pakistani proxy, that was meant to take over control of post-soviet Afghanistan and provide Pakistan with the startegic depth that it wanted against India.

After 9/11, the Taliban (of Pak Army/ISI) became a tool to keep NATO hopping and Afghanistan on the boil and suck in as much of military goodies that they could get and keep the tattered economy floating.

The Afghan people have seen only war since the past 33 years that has destroyed education/ their culture/ and any belief in humanity. Theirs is a struggle to survive - the future for them is only if they will have peace the next day or next week, something that we take for granted.

Afghanistan is like a babe in the woods with a wolf waiting on the eastern border. The nation needs all the international help that it can get, and the bombing has to be shifted some clicks to the east to actually hit the vipers nest.

[Wayfarer]

Japan and Germany are very different from Afghanistan.

Sir, Agreed, but all three have had a constant experience of war (Japan with the Sino-Japanese conflicts building up to WW2 and the failed campaign into SEA/Pacific, Germany with the crucible on the Eastern Front, both experienced the technical/numerical superiority that the Allies brought in full force. The Afghanis have only had a taste of true NATO power in that initial 1 month of OEF.

Back then, the Allies had no qualms whatsoever about leveling entire cities like Dresden and Hamburg should it bring the war to a close faster). OEF has been a war and not a war at the same time, we are spending good money and individuals, but are reticent to go the full-mile when it comes to rooting out the Taliban. As it is, the butchers bill is costly enough, but to rub salt into the wound is to have it fail not because of flawed military operations, but restrictions on the concept of war and the idea that we can wage a "nice" war where only baddies get shot and civilians are protected 24/7 by an armed police force. If, OEF was in response to 9/11, then why the hell have qualms about going the full mile? Is a death toll of 3000 civilians and comparable soldiers not enough to prompt a full-state of war?

If the U.S had continued with operations against the Taliban with the same impunity that they crushed the Taliban with at the beginning of OEF, many more Afghans be on our side, rather than simply sitting the fence and waiting for the war of attrition/time (which the West) was going to lose.

The main point is the counterproductivity/existence of a regime who takes two steps backward for everyone one you make forward, paid in coin and blood. If America were to depose of Karzai forcibly and install Amrullah Saleh in his place, I have no doubt not many Afghans would be shedding tears. Why not do it then? If you are willing to risk the lives of American soldiers, why give a f!gs ass about the career security of a trouble-making Afghani politician.

The Japanese & Germans - were/are an educated peoples. The facist governments that they had seen is nowhere near of what Taliban was/ is.

Both nations civilians, especially towards the latter stages of the war as things became more desperate were being treated even worse. I don't doubt if the Taliban was put to the brink, opium fields burned, supply-lines cut, and even incursions into Baluchistan were to begin, that they would feel the heat and do the job that U.S forces have been trying to do for a decade (push Afghans into U.S arms). To speak crudely, the Afghans would side with the guy with a bigger stick (who has an intention to use it) and money, over the guy with a tiny stick and one that offers little or no benefit. As of now, we have the bigger stick, but the political inability to use it fully restrains what it can do, and therefore how it can alter the locals perception. Hearts and minds won rather than via buying your way, but making you the only option left standing, and to stand against you, complete suicide.

After 9/11, the Taliban (of Pak Army/ISI) became a tool to keep NATO hopping and Afghanistan on the boil and suck in as much of military goodies that they could get and keep the tattered economy floating.

Who's plan though, ISI or P.A. Are these two forces not diametrically oppossed, one possessing an intelligence cadre with links to fundamentalist terrorist proxies, P.A brains being (outwardly) secular (not in terms of belief, but in terms of action - i.e, not religiously motivated), educated, comparitively Westernized, and possessing a competing desire to control Pakistan (naturally putting them at loggerheads with the Pak.Taliban)


Around 1 billion in aid from the U.S in 2011. Doesn't America have a bit of a budget issue, let alone having the cash to throw to questionable allies

The Afghan people have seen only war since the past 33 years that has destroyed education/ their culture/ and any belief in humanity. Theirs is a struggle to survive - the future for them is only if they will have peace the next day or next week, something that we take for granted.

Were the money spent nation building/bribing locals spent on increase support for either more boots/materiel on the ground or even more relaxed RoEs. The restrictive engagement rules have not been easy on ISAF soldiers, and where are the flag-waving indigenous populations who are rushing into our arms? If perhaps, the U.S military didn't have one hand tied behind its back via extremely strict RoEs and restriction to operating within Afghani borders, perhaps then we may have stood a chance. I mean, they are technically our allies (the Pakistanis), and to not

Afghanistan is like a babe in the woods with a wolf waiting on the eastern border. The nation needs all the international help that it can get, and the bombing has to be shifted some clicks to the east to actually hit the vipers nest.

Seems to be more a place where empires go to die via a thousand paper-cuts.

Problem is what will the Viper do with his nuclear stockpiles. Usage I am not so worried about, but contingencies MUST exist for the P.A to disseminate nuclear technology to proxies should its physical infrastructure come under attack. If the PA came under attack from American forces, the PA would be forced to sleep with the ISI/proxies as a means to strike back. lA quick question as well, who holds the keys to the Pakistani Border incursions should be increasing to the point where Pakistan is FORCED to cut itself off from U.S assistance otherwise face general domestic revolt. Taliban supply centers/madrassas taken out, the problem of Pakistani aid solved.

Theories aside, we will have to deal with the very real possibility of a failed Pakistani state when U.S aid is withdrawn due to domestic pressures (sooner or later). What are the features of the internal politics within the nation, i.e is the P.A ardently opposed to the ISI, or can both factions draw together should circumstances see fit. A full-blown civil war straddling both Pakistan and Afghanistan is a possibility, with the majority of the PA being holed up on the East due to institutional paranoia about India.

The civilian Pakistani administration can be written off, much like its Afghani counterpart. 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. More military co-operation could be assured from a mutual distrust of the Pak.Taliban (which, I assume the Pak army would be happy to see the end of, as it draws away forces that could be concentrated on the Indo-Pak border). The civilian Govt. simply doesn't have the political backbone or strength to withstand the Taliban, under any real pressure, Pakistan would shift back to the military oligarchy it has enjoyed in the past. In a scenario involving the Pak. Military and the Pak.Taliban, on which side do the ISI stand?

[Officer of Engineers]

String him up. I have no tolerance for anyone who goes after kids. Especially one of my own.