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US soldier shoots nine children dead in rampage that kills 16 civilians

RIp the dead. Pathetic stuff from the Americans once again. This is how America brings democracy and justice to weaker countries.

Mod Edit: no insensitive posters or images please
 
The problem is the modern soldier. Modern professinal armies are just killing machines devoid of human traits. The more brutal the killing machine the more medals they are given. Sad state of humanity.
 
hate against muslims and portraying every muslim as taliban and potential terrorist......leads to incidents like this...

Previously some muslim scolors were guilty of injecting hate against infedals and resultiing terrorism against them.
now its the other way round...Western media has nothing positive to say about muslims..everything they say is negative..
result is that people watching western media have started to hate muslims..or the good ones among them avoid muslims..
A spree of supressing musim rights is already going on arlund the world .. muslims being stopped from dressing up the way they want..muslims stlpped from travelling and resulting in buisiness restriction...
every muslim bekng treated as security risk on airports...
muslims being made to live.in fear as in many countries they can be arrested and put into jail anytime without proof..
patriot act of USA.

And now armed soldiers killing indiscriminately ..

The world needs to cut back ln their hate propoganda against muslims and start looking at our positive side also.
 
On topic:
from another similar thread.
Why do Americans allow drunks weapons. In UK we cant drive after 2 pints of lager,

IIRC, US/NATO soldiers are NOT allowed alcoholic beverages while on deployment. So there is no way that a bunch of 'drunk soldiers' egged that idiot on in his killing spree. IF and if there were any accomplices, rest assured they will be punished too.

Oh, btw, that soldier will be tried under the UCMJ, and most likely will receive a death sentence, if not life imprisonment. Period.

From another forum: by someone who knows what he's talking about.
We have the UCMJ to try him under. We still have the death penalty besides life imprisonment as an option.

General Overview of the UCMJ
Uniform Code of Military Justice - UCMJ
Punitive Articles
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/.../blart-118.htm
ART. 118. MURDER
Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- -

(1) has a premeditated design to kill;

(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;

(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or

(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;

is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.

I dont see how the ICC or Hague can give a harsher maximum sentence than Death. Even if he is found guilty and given Life Imprisonment its will be served at Leavenworths US Disciplinary Barracks where Life means just that.
 
The problem is the modern soldier. Modern professinal armies are just killing machines devoid of human traits. The more brutal the killing machine the more medals they are given. Sad state of humanity.

The problem is the lack of rule of law. Since once again Afghanistan has bent over by not arresting the US soldier for butchering 16 civilians, Americans will never implement better controls. Once you start throwing them in jail the realization that they have to work on higher standards would sink in to the bosses of their military machine.

This was such a big crime that the Afghan public should have amassed up in front Kandahar air base, broken the gates, and pulled culprit out of his comfortable bunk. If the US has already taken him out of Afghanistan then that's a crime - and then his CO should have been arrested as an accomplice.

See its time when you have to fight with the US on everything it does wrong to you.
 
Not much surprised with "Majority" of Indian reactions "Defending American bullshits" (AS USUAL) everywhere.... unfrotuntly show some evil inside mentality of Israelis, Americans and Indians against Muslim. Shame on you guys how you are defending such act when their own country people protest everyday against US govt on many things related WOT and infact against this WOT. This is not WAR ON TERROR this is WAR AGAINST ISLAM and PAKISTAN. American are real terrorist on this whole world. Working for Israel and Israeli protection killing Muslims everywhere.

When any Pakistani or Afghan killing anyone then (woooo look at this WHOLE NATION IS TERRORIST but when American Israeli doing such act (ohhh this SINGLE lunatic idiot doing such thing bring him/her to the justice.. BUT NOT WHOLE ARMY like this blaa blaa ...

Amazing ideology and mentality of Indian!

kesi nay sahi kaha hey "jitna marzi paisa ajayee jahil shaks jahil he rahta hey"
 
God may bless them ,whenever I hear such these kind of news I say by myself it's the last one but as if there is no end for these grief .

Pray this doesnt happen in Iran brother. They are going from one country to the next, killing and destroying without justification.
 
Massacre darkens Afghan outlook for US

WASHINGTON - While US officials insisted their counterinsurgency strategy is still working, Sunday's pre-dawn massacre by a US staff sergeant of 16 people, including nine children, in their homes in Kandahar province has dealt yet another body blow to Washington's hopes of sustaining a significant military presence in Afghanistan after 2014.

The massacre was perpetrated by one person acting entirely on his own, the Pentagon said on Monday. But it was the latest in a series of recent incidents, including the dissemination on the Internet of a video showing four American soldiers urinating on the corpses of dead Afghans and the apparently inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran outside a US military base, that have stoked popular outrage against US and other foreign troops.

It also took place amid indications that the US electorate and congress are increasingly disillusioned with what last year had already become the longest war in US history.

A new Washington Post/ABC public opinion poll released on Sunday found that 60% of respondents now believe the Afghanistan campaign was not worth fighting, close to an all-time high in the decade-long war.

Moreover, only 30% of respondents said they believed most Afghans support US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) efforts in their country; 55% said they believed that most Afghans oppose the foreign presence.

The massacre took place just after Washington and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai had finally agreed on one of two key points of contention that have stood in the way of the signing of a strategic partnership agreement that would permit Washington to retain a substantial military advisory force and possibly access to several key bases after 2014, the deadline by which foreign combat troops are to have left Afghanistan.

The two sides reached an agreement last week on transferring some 3,200 suspected Taliban insurgents detained by US forces at the Parwan prison at the US-controlled Bagram air base to Afghan custody over the next six months.

Under the accord, the United States will retain a veto over whether specific detainees could be released by Afghan authorities so long as US troops remain in the country. In addition, the two sides agreed that Washington would retain custody of non-Afghan prisoners believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Yet to be resolved, however, is Karzai's demand that night raids be ended against alleged Taliban targets by US special forces. The raids, which US military officials say have resulted in the capture or killing of thousands of Taliban fighters in recent years, have also been cited by many Afghans and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as perhaps the most important cause of local discontent with the US military presence.
Sunday's massacre, which did not involve special forces, took place in three villages in Kandahar's Panjwai district, a Taliban stronghold until the US "surged" troops into the region as part of the counterinsurgency strategy adopted by President Barack Obama in late 2009.

According to various reports, a 38-year-old army staff sergeant who had served several tours of duty in Iraq and was deployed to Afghanistan in December left his base in the early morning, walked to a nearby village, and broke into three houses in a 500-meter radius, shooting and stabbing its residents, including young children. He then returned to his base, where he surrendered and is under detention.

According to the Pentagon account, the base authorities sent troops aboard helicopters to treat and evacuate the wounded, thus fueling rumors that more than one rogue soldier was involved in the attacks.

"This latest assault was reportedly the work of a single soldier, but many Afghans won't believe or care that it was not another routine US raid. The effects are the same," said Ann Jones, author of the 2006 book Kabul in Winter and a prominent critic of US counterinsurgency tactics in Afghanistan.

"US officials miss the point entirely, insisting this massacre was a one-off tragedy, when Afghans know something like it will happen again any day."

US officials including Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and top military commanders have issued a number of statements of regret since the incident, promising to investigate fully what took place and hold anyone responsible accountable.

Speaking at the United Nations on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also noted that Washington "had a difficult and complex few weeks in Afghanistan" but stressed that "our steadfast dedication to protecting the Afghan people" remained unchanged.

But while some officials expressed relief that the massacre had not yet sparked the kinds of violent demonstrations - or apparent revenge killings by Afghan troops against US soldiers - that followed the Koran burning, independent analysts said it was bound to add to the mutual distrust that has become increasingly evident in recent months.

"Coming right after the unintentional desecration of Korans and the deaths of several NATO soldiers from rogue Afghan soldiers, this latest tragedy will further inflame anti-foreign sentiment in Afghanistan and strain ties between President Karzai('s) government and his NATO allies," Bruce Reidel, a former top US Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst and an architect of Obama's strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote in The Daily Beast on Monday.

The killings "will increase pressure to find a political solution to the Afghan war", he noted, adding that the fact that the Taliban have not renounced peace talks and have agreed to open an office in Qatar to facilitate negotiations in spite of these incidents were favorable signs.

But Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistan expert on Afghanistan who enjoys some influence in policymaking circles in Washington and also favors peace talks with the Taliban, wrote in the Financial Times on Monday that the Western forces in Afghanistan were facing a "crisis of confidence" and Karzai's "desire to seek a strategic partnership agreement with the US is becoming more and more unacceptable to the Afghan people".

The latest incident will also add to the war fatigue in the United States.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a foreign-policy hawk who has called, among other things, for bombing Iran, admitted on Sunday after news of the massacre reached Washington that the US mission in Afghanistan was "not doable" and Washington's intervention there was "probably counter-productive".

Unlike Democrats and independents, who have been consistently more skeptical about the war, Republicans in the latest poll were evenly split on whether it was worth fighting, and some Republican lawmakers were balking at the proposed budget for Afghanistan next year before the latest incident.

The soldier, whose name will not be released pending completion of an investigation, was reportedly taking part in a "village stabilization" operation, a key part of US counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to win over village elders and organize local police forces.

His home base, where his wife and three children reportedly live, is at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington. That is the same home base of the so-called "kill team", a unit led by another staff sergeant that killed at least three Afghan civilians in separate incidents and then cut off their body parts as trophies in 2009.

Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs was convicted of murder and other crimes and sentenced to a life term by a military tribunal at the base last November, but he could be freed in as little as 10 years.

Asia Times Online :: Massacre darkens Afghan outlook for US
 
In Vietnam the NVA and VC whenever they were able to drag off a Marine or if the Americans got overrun and left dead behind, they would routinely cut the Marines' dicks off and sew it to their mouthes....after that was seen, Marines went back in with force to recover their bodies --they started taking ears, and other body parts, for trophies...To quote Sherman, ''war is hell people''


now in this case --- America seems to have landed itself (again) in quite a pickle.....this is the Afghan version of what happened in Haditha and Mahmoudiyya Iraq, a few years back.


in fact if i were a US marine or some grunt serving there, i'd be the most furious about this trigger-happy psycho's actions.


he killed women and children
 
RIP to the dead, its not going to reflect good for the NATO forces in Afganistan.
 
US should look into the psychological effect of war on a soldiers life. All countries should do that.

Its a tragedy that he went berserk..

in DC i've met Vietnam combat vets who are psychologically f*cked since past 40+ years

many with criminal records -- for things ranging from disorderly conduct to public intoxication to domestic abuse


i dont think it'll be much different in this case
 
the American commanders think that the people are stupid?
E
hold on a moment and tell me how its possible for one person to be able to carry out this act?

by going out of his base
ALONE
, IN THE DARK
, WITHOUT PERMISSION
. CONTINUE TO KILL THE OCCUPANTS OF IN MULTIPLE HOUSES
,WITHOUT ANY INTERVENTION FROM BASE?
AND THEN TORCH THE BODIES
AND THEN PEACEFULLY SURRENDER HIMSELF BACK IN THE BASE?

wow wow wow

in a hostile environment, where the only reason to go out of a base in the dark is in an emergency or a mission and that too with a group of people with an approval of the commander.

a "lone" soldier" is able to leave the premises of the base without a "pass?" did he have the chemicals handy when he went out to kill? did the guard not ask him what he was planning to do?

the US military would have covered it all up had it not been in the city. but this time there were many witnesses who these Americans failed to silence. this was a copy cat kill squad incident nothing less than that.
either the base commander was aware of this or the group of people including the sentries were covering for each other.

if the rest of the base is innocent then I have these simple questions

1. what are the SOPs regarding going out in the dark?
2. how did the guy manage to go out of the base without night pass (which is only possible in friendly cities not war zone).
3. was he on foot or did he drive? why no one raised an eyebrow over that?
4. Was he carrying the canisters of chemicals and fuel with him when he went out or did he come back to get them?
5. Did someone ask him what was he doing?
6. did the commander send off a patrol to find out what was this all firing related to?



my understanding is that it was a group of soldiers who covered for each other and they must have been doing it for sometimes in the far flung areas that are away from media presence and those killers must have been operating the same way those human trophy collecting kill team members had been doing past years.

Excellent analysis. Last night we are asking the same thing that how easy it is for a soldier to slip out of his base in the dark with a live weapon and other chemicals. There must be multi tiers of checkposts etc.

In the movie The Hurt Locker the main protagonist is able to leave his base at night and conduct and one man op. The users reviews on Amazon , mostly men having served in Iraq, blasted that idea commenting its virtually impossible to sneak out of the base with so many guard posts.

Perhaps Chogy or Gambit can explain how he managed to leave unnoticed.
 
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