US-Afghani Relations Take a Turn For the Worse
http://news.yahoo.com/us-soldier-kil...164242200.html
I hope they put this guy in prison for the rest of his life. Knowing the way the US prosecutes its soldiers, I bet he's just going to get "dishonorable discharge" and probation. His salary will most likely be simply docked, temporarily.
What are you basing this on?The guy will be lucky to escape the death penalty.
Hope is the denial of reality
The federal government does the death penalty ?
Congratulations America
Infrequently, but yes (this is conducted by the military by the way).Originally Posted by Hazir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...tal_punishment Someone on death row as we speak.
Last edited by Loki; 03-12-2012 at 01:23 AM.
Hope is the denial of reality
Oh, ok. Well, we'll never really hear about the outcome of this case, because by the time this guy is sentenced nobody would use his time any longer to think anything even remotely related to Afghanistan.
Congratulations America
Previous examples. Many of them get off scot free. I'm just basing my first comment on the number of newspaper articles mentioning such behavior going unpunished. I wouldn't put it below the media to never mention military personnel being rightly punished for their malevolent and destructive behavior. After all, it isn't a sensational scandal.What are you basing this on?
Go ahead and list examples of this magnitude (including the fact that "in the heat of the battle" can't possibly be used as a defense here) along with the punishments.
Hope is the denial of reality
How in the hell do you figure that?
That's what happens to cops who commit murder.
Soldiers who gun down civilians have the rest of their lives in a small, windowless room to look forward to.
You better believe it. Kill a fed, and it's the feds who put you to death, not any state government. Same would apply in this case, and the prosecutors will most definitely be seeking to execute this guy. And, from the way it sounds like this went down, soldier-boy's looking to die anyway, so he might not even fight it, or try to get himself life without.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Maybe it was police officers, who the heck knows. There are too many armed citizens and officers bent of spreading wanton destruction in the States.
And how do you figure the third part? Speaking from experience Cain?
...I doubt the parameters - sixteen civilians including three children and nine women - will be replicated anytime in the near future. Although, next time a few brown civilians die, i'll be sure to link you to the verdict the tribunal passes regarding the soldier's actions.
Yeah, let's condemn the US military for the "brown" civilians killed by malaria!
Hope is the denial of reality
Truth.
But this is really horrible.
Agreed it's horrible, and I'm sure he'll be prosecuted. But I doubt it'll get to something like the death penalty - there's probably first questions of his mental fitness, and secondly they'll be able to argue all sorts of exigent circumstances. I'd like to see him spend a lot of time in jail, but it's an open question what will happen - the so-called 'kill squad' case doesn't give us the best precedent, I'm afraid, though the evidence may be better here.
Malaria sure has evolved! They recently acquire state-of-the-art U.S. weapons in order to maximize carnage and bloodshed. But like I told my friends when the Qu'ran burning fiasco occurred, military personnel should be attend mandatory religious tolerance and cultural sensitivity classes before hopping into an airplane and dropped in a warn-torn region. Half the polarization wouldn't occur. Because I come to wonder, how did a group of Afghani civilians see the Qu'ran being burnt in an enormous fuck-you pyre? Something, or most likely someone, most have told them, "listen, we're going to defecate on your pride and urinate noisily on your honor."
Maybe civilians in said countries should be educated that mass murder isn't a proper reaction to being insulted.
Hope is the denial of reality
Gee, I wonder what will happen if I purchase a bus ticket to Texas and publicly burn a flag. The flag is just a symbol, yet most of us know with all the shotguns lying around, I'd have more holes than a slice of swiss cheese before half the flag is even burnt.
Now imagine I belligerently invade the Texans, impose my decadent Muslim culture to promote my agenda, and flip them the birdie salute.
And you're basing this assumption on what? Recent examples?
I love how you're simultaneously attacking one side for not being well-read, while excusing the other for mass murder. Continue digging.
Hope is the denial of reality
Really? It's not like this a case involving multiple shooters who can all point the finger at each other to dispel blame or justify their actions. And while I'm sure the defense will argue something about mental capacity, all that's going to do is change what kind of facility he spends the rest of his life in... and it's not like prisons for the criminally insane are anything but prisons anyway.
Well, that's frankly more than a little naive, and wouldn't help anyway. Of course, you're clearly not privy to the propaganda and psy-ops that the hardliners and the militants are running, but they don't need any help from incidents like that to polarize the people and incite hatred of the Western infidels. They've been doing it for decades, and there's just no correlation between Western action (or inaction) and the blame they get on the Arab and Muslim street. We take military action, we're stealing their oil and raping their babies. We don't, we're using puppets to steal their oil and rape their babies.
The problem is the tribal mindset in these arts of the world that paints the bad guys as pure defenders of the Muslim faith (even when they're bigger perverts and sinners than the supposed American Satan), and everyone else is an invading army doing Satan's bidding.
Of course, the reality is that they put Americans (and to a lesser extent, Europeans) in a lose-lose situation, because they need the scapegoat to distract the masses from what really going on, which is that the Islamists are selling out their own Muslim "brothers" for personal gain.
Someone like the Islamists looking to stir up trouble?
How else would anyone even know that a holy text is being burned in a pile of hundreds of thousands of military documents, if not because they were told it was so, and foolishly believed it, thanks to their tribal mindset? Whether it's even true or not at that point becomes irrelevant.
Kinda shows what you know there. Flag burning in Texas isn't met by vigilante violence, but by police thuggery. You'd be arrested and slapped with nuisance charges that wouldn't stick. Free expression and all that - even in our society which only pretends to have some semblance of freedom, you are allowed to destroy and deface symbols to express yourself.
Hell, unlike the part of the world that's stuck in the dark ages, you can even deface a symbol of this country, on an on going basis, for years without being subject to honor killings or other forms of "expression" that died out centuries ago in the civilized world.
Really? I must have missed that news event. When did the governor of Texas sanction, fund and organize an act of war on you?
And that's why we're in Afghanistan... which by all rights we could have bombed back into the stone age and walked away from, but didn't. Which brings to mind the only reason we're still there, because we've been invited to stay around to try to prevent the Islamists from taking over again, and honoring their religion by murdering women for the heinous crime of reading, and so on and so forth.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Hey, it's part of their culture; we shouldn't offend them by pointing out it's wrong.
Hope is the denial of reality
Well, you know me... I much prefer a few rounds in the back of an oppressive tyrant's head to a culturally insensitive, potentially offensive discussion with him.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Mai Lai:
Soldiers who gun down civilians have the rest of their lives in a small, windowless room to look forward to.
.
Anyway, I agree with you on this one - I can't imagine how this guy is going to avoid at least a life sentence. Would you support his being turned over to the Afghan 'authorities' for whatever passes for a trial and sentencing?Court martial
On November 17, 1970, the United States Army charged 14 officers, including Major General Samuel W. Koster, the Americal Division's commanding officer, with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of those charges were later dropped. Brigade commander Henderson was the only officer who stood trial on charges relating to the cover-up; he was acquitted on December 17, 1971.[41]
In a four-month-long trial, despite claims that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, Calley was convicted on March 29, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. He was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Richard Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's sentence was later adjusted, so that he would eventually serve three and one-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning.
In a separate trial, Captain Medina denied giving the orders that led to the massacre, and was acquitted of all charges, effectively negating the prosecution's theory of "command responsibility", now referred to as the "Medina standard". Several months after his acquittal, however, Medina admitted that he had suppressed evidence and had lied to Colonel Henderson about the number of civilian deaths.[42]
Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at Mỹ Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley was the only one convicted.
Some have argued that the outcome of the Mỹ Lai courts-martial was a reversal of the laws of war that were set forth in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals.[43] Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in The New York Times as stating that Calley's sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders—a rationale that stands in direct contradiction of the standards set at Nuremberg and Tokyo, where German and Japanese soldiers were executed for similar acts.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
No US court would allow it; we don't extradite people to countries that torture. We also have an agreement in place with Afghanistan that puts all crimes committed by US servicemen within our jurisdiction (i.e. it would be illegal to give him up).
Hope is the denial of reality
Your language there, "whatever passes for a trial," gives me pause.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
http://gma.yahoo.com/soldier-held-af...-abc-news.html
Mhmmm. Whatever will happen now with this new development?
I'm not disagreeing with you. Hell, i'm all for everyone growing thicker skin and/or a brain. Every action shouldn't elicit a response. You're not going to get through life if a glancing blow below the belt riles you up. Just trying my best to present the other side's view.Well, you know me... I much prefer a few rounds in the back of an oppressive tyrant's head to a culturally insensitive, potentially offensive discussion with him.
Last edited by Omega; 03-13-2012 at 01:19 AM.
Me too. Not sure for the same reasons . . . . is your pause because I chose those words or that those words are all too accurate?
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Now that's a bit of a bind isn't it?
Congratulations America
An investigation into Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and how they've handled brain injuries and PTSD. Early media reports suggest that base has down-played combat vet complaints, and fast-tracked their active duty for early or multiple deployments.
In civilian courts, people with traumatic brain injuries can be seen as victims themselves---and any subsequent violent behavior is considered an extenuating circumstance, or something out of their control. Boxers, hockey, soccer and football players often have their sports career ended by brain injury or concussion syndrome. I have no idea how our military is expected to have "different brains" or physiology than contact sport athletes. Helmets can only do so much.
Funny you should mention that specific incident (I did a graduate-level project on the primary source material for that), and the reason most everyone got off is because it's not what you know, but what you can prove in court. And the Vietnamese villagers really did themselves no favors by relying on hearsay and coming up with testimony stating (for example) that there were many times more casualties than the entire population of the area.
So, you know, throw perjured survivor testimony on top of that clusterfuck, and it's no wonder the perpetrators mostly got off.
Turn him over to Afghan mob justice? No. That needs to remain reserved for women who read or who are rumored to not be virgins before marriage.
Every other combat soldier has a, or would medically qualify as having a TBI. It's what happens when explosions go off to close to your brain... and whether it's an IED, RPG, or a mortar, getting a concussion and a bit o' brain scramble from all the shit trying to blow you up is inevitable over there.
So honestly, probably nothing. If his injuries really were so severe that he shouldn't have been redeployed, the brass won't want that coming out, so it won't, and if they weren't that severe, he's just like a hundred thousand other soldiers, and won't be able to make it a significant factor. Best case, he's able to use it to argue mental capacity, and spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric prison.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
A mild TBI and marital problems? I have a bridge to sell anyone who thinks that's sufficient to claim an insanity defense under American law.
Hope is the denial of reality
Sort of along these lines, I have to wonder about the lone gunman scenario. How does a solitary soldier leave a presumably heavily and vigilantly guarded base in Afghanistan without permission in the middle of the night without anyone stopping him or at least challenging him? "Hey fellas, just going out for a walk....be back before dawn." Seriously?
And it doesn't seem like he just went on a random killing spree. Wouldn't he have killed lots more people if he had? Why did he go to two separate villages? There's a lot more to this than what's been said so far.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
If you read between the lines, he was attached to the special ops teams.
So, even at a "normal" base, he's not going to get much resistance to the idea of leaving base, loaded for bear at unusual hours. That comes with being attached to a special ops team; that's the job. And of course, even in the general case, the gate guards allow personal to leave the base freely - their job is keeping unauthorized folks out, not keeping military personnel in. This is especially true on a FOB, where the base's whole raison d'etre is to provide a base from which you launch operations. And when it involves special ops, they particularly don't ask questions, because that's just a stupid thing to do on some many levels. The gate guard probably won't have clearance to hear the real answer, is probably specifically instructed NOT to log the comings and goings of special ops teams, doesn't want to piss off the operators, will look up to the operators, etc.
Sure. He definitely picked the two families with intent - maybe they pissed him off, or he suspected them of being AQ sympathizers, or they were, or they reminded him of someone, or he blamed them for an op that went sideways and got an operator or buddy harmed, etc. (The guy he killed on the way back may have just been wrong place, wrong time, or "fuck these towelheads" or whatever else.)
Having said that, the real reason he had for targeting these families may never see the light of day, particularly if it's one of the most probable reasons, and relates to an action undertaken by the special ops guys.
Reads to me (so far) like the guy's given up on his life and wanted some commando justice for some reason or another, so he massacred the families out of a sense of vengeance, and then turned himself in because he'd set out to do what he wanted to do, and doesn't care about anything beyond that. 'Course, he'll probably start caring after a few months in the brig, but I'd bet a lot of money at high odds that "payback" was what was running through his head when he went out and lit up those families.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
