US soldier kills Afghan civilians in Kandahar

Originally posted by milkyway12
reply to post by torsion

 

I doubt they give him over to the Afghani authorities. He is claiming mental illness , which isn't to far-fetched.

As I predicted in the op - much will be made of his alleged "breakdown".

If this soldier had a proper mental breakdown I think he would have simply put his weapon under his chin and taken his own life. Thought and planning seems to have gone into his act, perhaps spurred on by the wrist-slapping that was administered to the American marines who committed the Haditha Massacre. He was also rational enough to make his way back to the safety of his base after he'd murdered his victims. More like the actions of a man on a mission than the deeds of a madman.

The pity-fishing breakdown claim will probably work for the American soldier but such issues are ignored when it come to extraditing people from other countries into America. Gary McKinnon is diagnosed with a mental illness but the American authorities are dismissing it and still trying to extradite him.

War is a strange terrible confusing scary lonely place. For everyone that has been saying this or that about the actions of this individual I have this to say, I do not condemn murder, I don't know anything about this soldier the on the ground situation history of his aor, unit, or Empcoa I won't comment, but for those of you that are so highly morally superior why don't you guys sign up, why don't you guys put your boots on the ground and tell your commanders no, why don't you yes you with all the answers attempt to "wake up" your platoon sargeant to the PTB and why don't you fill the ranks of our military, we need people morally and intellectually superior. For the choir I'm a former marine 0311 with more than 4 tours in various Combat zones, I beg all of you that assume to know so much about who what when's where's and whys regarding this "snapping" to join come on back to ATS and tell us how you feel then.

Naturally, all murder is heinous. But which is worse:

Premeditated murder by 'sound of mind' (!) people for a burnt book or the ensuing retributive murder by an unstable man?

reply to post by Sablicious


To be honest I think it all just boils down to insanity, we don't know what compelled this soldier to do this but to condone it is insane to condone the occupation there is insane the intent of the invasion was and is insane it's flimsy to say the least. All murderers that kill for enjoyment are insane, but to think had this guy been not put in this situation would he have otherwise not killed anyone? No matter the reasoning there is. I justification for any of this it is just plain insane my friend

Originally posted by milkyway12
reply to post by sitchin

 

We made the first move so i think America wins on that one.

They did get 4 kills and we only got 2 , so they did kill more than we did , but they were moving against the wood line while we had a small detachment holding the left. We took 2/3s of the village they took 1/3 and got the outside wood line , right flank. So obviously they had more to shoot at , the two we killed though were in windows.

They also said CAS and GTG didnt count. If you guys didnt have such sh*t aircraft , we wouldnt have this problem

If CAS counted on the fleeing terrorist we would have had 7 kills

against your 4.

edit on 11-3-2012 by milkyway12 because: (no reason given)

hey, i just had a really outrageous thought
this couldn't have anything to do with the older and/or more peaceful afghanis "dying out" as you mentioned earlier...



could it? ;o

reply to post by torsion


Well not to sound over callous here but if the Liberal's Savior would just pull ALL of our troops out of there to begin with we would not be at this point we are now would we.

I feel deeply for those innocents that lost their lives but at this time our troops are only there for two reasons since Bin Ladden is now dead. One is to protect the CIA's Heroin Supply Line and the other is to try and secure the country there so our Government Contractors can go in and mine ALL of the precious metals that are located there.

The Russians are obviously smarter than we are and realized those precious metals were not worth the cost of their troop's lives unlike our dipstick government officials.

Follow the money trail!!

been there .. done that in a little place called vietnam back in the 60's - 4 tours ... also in the years since spent putting people back together in war zones and disaster areas most wont even set foot in.. so yes junior I've damn sure earned my right to condemn the murderous bastards in the world who insist on slaughtering each other over nothing. not a damn thing ever changes aside from the methods the bastards find to butcher each other with in their stupid little fooking wars.

Originally posted by Sablicious
Naturally, all murder is heinous. But which is worse:

Premeditated murder by 'sound of mind' (!) people for a burnt book or the ensuing retributive murder by an unstable man?

They are equally appalling apart from the fact that the American soldier targeted children. Fanatical Muslims cannot be described as being sound of mind as your quotation marks imply. But the issue is the double standards of the reaction to the event. People are sympathetic to the soldier because he is American. He is not being handed over to the proper authorities to face the consequences of his crime because he is American. The soldier can be likened to Thomas Hamilton who was clearly mentally unstable. Would anyone attempt to justify Hamilton's actions because of his state of mind?

Originally posted by Sablicious
Naturally, all murder is heinous. But which is worse:

Premeditated murder by 'sound of mind' (!) people for a burnt book or the ensuing retributive murder by an unstable man?

So when an American kills children he is unstable. When a group of Afghans behead UN workers over burned Koran they are backward muslim wackjobs, right?

Let me ask you this. Afghanistan has been at war ever since 1979. How many Afghans,do you think, are unstable and suffer from a mental disorder ?

reply to post by decepticonLaura


-.-




Maybe ....

lol

2nd

Just saw this...

Afghans express skepticism over shooting account

But Abdul Rahim Ayubi, a lawmaker from Kandahar province, said the houses that were attacked were over a mile (2 kilometers) apart, raising questions about how a single soldier could have carried out all of the shootings.
"It is not possible for only one American soldier to come out of his base, kill a number of people far away, burn the bodies, go to another house and kill civilians there, then walk at least 2 kilometers and enter another house, kill civilians and burn them," said Ayubi.
Abdul Ghani, a local councilman in Panjwai district, said local villagers reported seeing two groups of soldiers.
"The villagers said they were hearing machine gun fire and pistol fire from different directions," said Ghani.

The underlined is a valid point.

reply to post by milkyway12


my what an in-depth and well-thought out reply!
that's every doubt i ever had totally quelled!
clearly the right people are doing the right thing in the right place!

would you like to try again
this time bearing in mind that those "kills"
are not [and you may be surprised by this] just a part of "Mass Effect 9: Afghan F Yeah"
but actually real people with thoughts and feelings every bit as deep as yours?

oh sorry, i mean
Only you can save us from the dreaded turbans, Batman!
do you need more guns?!

Judge? check..

Jury? check..

Rope?..double check..

Crowd to Watch the Hanging - You betcha

This was more than one rogue soldier. Eye witnesses, whose testimonials i will believe over and above any 'official' story, said:

BBC

He also believes that more than one US soldier entered his house.

"The Americans stayed in our house for a while," he said. "I was very scared."

Daily Mail

In a statement, Afghan President Hamid Karzai left open the possibility of more than one shooter. He initially spoke of a single U.S. gunman, then referred to 'American forces' entering houses.

The statement quoted a 15-year-old survivor named Rafiullah, shot in the leg, as telling Karzai in a phone call that 'soldiers' broke into his house, woke up his family and began shooting them.

Although i don't trust the Mail as far as i could throw it, but these conflicting accounts are interesting.

reply to post by Nammu


The sad reality is we just don't know, we will never truly know and sadder yet people still dont care just hang the patsy. I don't condone murder but I'm just saying no one here knows I find it odd some of the commentary we would have to had been there to fully grasp this I don't buy it all either.

Originally posted by alienones
Everyone will blast me for saying this, but it's better to get them now then when we strap a bomb on themselfs or when we get a hold of a weapon and start shooting some of our soldiers. Just my thinking.

I'm not going to 'blast' you for saying it. However, I literally got nauseous in reading it. Not quite sick..but real close. The reason is that it hit me, there was something that made an impression on me as a teenage kid seeing the end of the Soviet Occupation years in Afghanistan from U.S. News and stories. The Soviet Occupation forces were demonized for one MAJOR thing, among many, because it was said to be an attitude they fought with.

'Little ones become big Mujaheddin, so kill them all. I recall stories, again in my teen years, about deliberate fouling of water wells and other things....to achieve that goal. Their war and their effort to 'win' in Afghanistan went that far off the rails by the end and had become that......evil.

It just hit me by your comment...I'd heard it before. Those MANY years ago....in context to an entirely different war. I thought the people saying it were evil.

We've come full circle here and we've become what we once fought.

reply to post by EvanB

Do you honestly think that we are that deluded to think we are fighting for some great cause, like our nations??

Not on your life mate!

We fight for each other and our unit... Period.. THAT is where we get our "honour" from not from the likes of you hypocrites who vote for the morons who send us to those places in the first place!

YOU ARE TO BLAME.... YES YOU THE VOTER!... YOU PUT US THERE... WE DID NOT SUDDENLY DECIDE TO JUST TURN UP THERE AND START SHOOTING... If you want to blame someone, look in the mirror you hypocrites!!... Blood is on YOUR hands too as surely as mine .. Your vote put me there..

We are trained killers whose job it is to do YOUR political will...

SUCK UP SOME GUILT...

You fight for each other and you fight for your unite and that is it!!!! And that is supposed to justify your actions in this war?

You blame the US military (Your actions) on us? How pathetic are you?

We are trained killers whose job it is to do YOUR political will...

Sorry, but your job as a US soldier is not to do our political will. You swore an oath when you signed up to be a soldier. Which probably dosent mean anything to you, its just a bunch of fancy words without meaning. The oath you swore basically tels you not to do our political will. But to protect the constitution so that political will does not get out of hand. This means you have a obligation to the people against political will. You are supposed to know the difference between right and wrong according to the set of instruction given by the constitution.

Originally posted by julmarie
reply to post by dreamstalker

 

Where did you hear that it was multiple men? I have more confidence in our soldiers than that. I read on CNN (a reliable source) that it was one man who just broke.

very funny!

reliable? YEAH RIGHT!

The Afghan Night Raids are a sanctioned US forces tactic. This is one that just ratcheted up the intensity of nightly terror.

Please note there are quite a few confirmed accounts of night raids gone wrong.

NATO's Afghan night raids come with high civilian cost

Around 8 percent of the 472 civilians killed or wounded by foreign troops last year were caught up in night raids gone wrong, they said.

Although more than 80 percent of recent raids ended without a shot being fired, violence escalates fast when it does break out, with 600 people killed on operations in the three-month period.

The above info and the fact that soldiers don't go out on patrol (night raids) alone is more than enough for us here at ATS to read between the lines.