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Official: U.S. soldier opened fire on Afghan civilians

RDS

RDS

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This sounds like a dreadful incident. My concern about the story stems from this passage from the BBC report:

The soldier - who had reportedly suffered a breakdown before the attacks - handed himself over to the US military authorities after carrying out the killings. BBC Online
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A breakdown during a time of war amongst serving personnel is not uncommon. The problem is that to suffer a breakdown, a loss of critical faculties and going on a rampage while one's mind is malfunctioning does not seem to mesh with having the foresight and sang-froid to ensure one hands oneself into one's own side. That strikes me as pre-meditated and extremely rational behaviour.

Are we dealing here with criminal actions or criminally insane actions?
 
Unbelievable. I don't even know what to think or say about this. I'm sad and I'm pissed and I'm wondering what kind of retaliation, if any, is going to come from this. Of course this merits an apology, but I think it merits more although I'm not sure what.
 
Andalublue said:
This sounds like a dreadful incident. My concern about the story stems from this passage from the BBC report:



A breakdown during a time of war amongst serving personnel is not uncommon. The problem is that to suffer a breakdown, a loss of critical faculties and going on a rampage while one's mind is malfunctioning does not seem to mesh with having the foresight and sang-froid to ensure one hands oneself into one's own side. That strikes me as pre-meditated and extremely rational behaviour.

Are we dealing here with criminal actions or criminally insane actions?
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Too early to tell and I don't think anything can be concluded from the vague "reportedly suffered a breakdown before the attacks". I don't see how handing oneself in doesn't mesh with an acute psychotic episode though.
 
What's sad is that some anti-war types will actually be happy this happened.
 
Ben K. said:
Too early to tell and I don't think anything can be concluded from the vague "reportedly suffered a breakdown before the attacks". I don't see how handing oneself in doesn't mesh with an acute psychotic episode though.
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I'll reserve judgement. It just sounded strange to me, to do something entirely irrational and then something completely rational within minutes rang alarms.
 
X Factor said:
What's sad is that some anti-war types will actually be happy this happened.
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Actually, what's sad is that 16 civilians are dead and one US soldier who probably should have been in a psych ward just took their lives, destroyed their families, ruined his life, hurt his own family tremendously and may have put the lives of American soldiers in addition to the mission at risk. That is what is sad. Your comment is just baseless and out of place.
 
aww ****, So much for winning the hearts and the minds of the people there. With this right on the heels of the Koran burning incident, our situation there is pretty much screwed.
 
As this involved children, going house to house and doing this alone I cannot see any rational motivation behind this soldiers behavior. There may never be an answer that any person can understand. This complicates and already tenuous relationship with the People Of Afghanistan. Terrible tragedy.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Actually, what's sad is that 16 civilians are dead and one US soldier who probably should have been in a psych ward just took their lives, destroyed their families, ruined his life, hurt his own family tremendously and may have put the lives of American soldiers in addition to the mission at risk. That is what is sad. Your comment is just baseless and out of place.
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All that you've said is true, which makes it all the more sad that which I've said is also true. I do want to emphasize some, in fact, probably very few, but there are those that will attempt to use this to condemn all our military and the USA as a whole.
 
X Factor said:
All that you've said is true, which makes it all the more sad that which I've said is also true.
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What I said is true (relative to human empathy). What you said is a prediction of the future which, by definition, cannot be true or false since it hasn't happened.

I do want to emphasize some, in fact, probably very few, but there are those that will attempt to use this to condemn all our military and the USA as a whole.
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This is a different argument from saying that some people will be "happy" this happened as you did originally. I still find it odd that out of all the thoughts this event brings up, you consider this to be the thing to mention.
 
This is indeed a terrible incident, it is tempered for me at least by the violence perpetrated, and the murders committed in the name of a freakin' book getting burned. In my opinion, we just need to get out, stay out, and let them go back to killing each other.

I can imagine a soldier, losing it under the circumstances we have created, and I am not in any way condoning these actions.

We are over there trying to "Spread Freedom", our soldiers are under constant threat by the folks we are trying to help...and they have big guns.
I am honestly amazed this sort of thing does not occur far more often.
 
RDS said:
This one merits an apology from Obama.

Official: U.S. soldier opened fire on Afghan civilians
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I'm sick and tired of us apologizing to Afghanistan.

MaggieD's suggestion:
This is a very unfortunate incident, a senseless tragedy. Words cannot express our outrage that these 16 civilians were gunned down by a US soldier. The American people sincerely sympathize with the people who were effected by this senseless tragedy. We regret this happened and will do everything we can to assist the families involved. The soldier involved has been taken into custody and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
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If that's not enough, **** 'em.

Get our troops outta' there.
 
Andalublue said:
Is that what is known as American exceptionalism? I guess it's the prerogative of an invading superpower, no?
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Absolutely not, it was a bargained for right that the US has jurisdiction over it's military personal whether acting in a military capacity or outside the course of their duties. There is not an example of "American execptionalism", rather, relinquishing custody is the cost of doing business for Afghanistan.


An agreement exists regarding the status of military and civilian personnel of the U.S. Department of Defense present in Afghanistan in connection with cooperative efforts in response to terrorism, humanitarian and civic assistance, military training and exercises, and other activities. Such personnel are to be accorded “a status equivalent to that accorded to the administrative and technical staff” of the U.S. Embassy under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. Accordingly, U.S. personnel are immune from criminal prosecution by Afghan authorities, and are immune from civil and administrative jurisdiction except with respect to acts performed outside the course of their duties. In the agreement, the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan (ITGA)48 explicitly authorized the U.S. government to exercise criminal jurisdiction over U.S. personnel, and the Government of Afghanistan is not permitted to surrender U.S. personnel to the custody of another State, international tribunal, or any other entity without consent of the U.S. government. Although the agreement was signed by the ITGA, the subsequently elected Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan assumed responsibility for ITGA’s legal obligations and the agreement remains in force. The agreement does not appear to provide immunity for contract personnel.
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http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34531.pdf
 
I think we gave given enough of our time, resources, personnel and dignity to this situation get our people home.
 
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tecoyah said:
We are over there trying to "Spread Freedom", our soldiers are under constant threat by the folks we are trying to help...and they have big guns.
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Well, it's not like we're trying to help out of the goodness of our hearts. We went to Afghanistan to get our enemies and now we're trying to not leave the place completely effed up.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
we're trying to not leave the place completely effed up.
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The place has always been completely effed up and its culture will ensure that it will continue to be completely effed up.

Ain't nothing we can do about it.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
What I said is true (relative to human empathy). What you said is a prediction of the future which, by definition, cannot be true or false since it hasn't happened.


This is a different argument from saying that some people will be "happy" this happened as you did originally. I still find it odd that out of all the thoughts this event brings up, you consider this to be the thing to mention.
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I stand by what I said originally. Most people revel in the successes of our military, but there are those who revel in their failings. Do you really deny that?
 
X Factor said:
I stand by what I said originally. Most people revel in the successes of our military, but there are those who revel in their failings. Do you really deny that?
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This is not a failure of our military. This is a "**** happens" kinda thing. It's tragic, but the truth is these things will happen in war and nothing we do will change that.
 
X Factor said:
I stand by what I said originally. Most people revel in the successes of our military, but there are those who revel in their failings.
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I stand by my original comments that your original post was baseless and out of place. I also stand by the assertion that it's odd and questionable that you would chose to concentrate first and foremost on smearing other people based on actions that they haven't committed and ignoring the actual sad part of what has happened.

Do you really deny that?
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This isn't a failure of our military. This is the action of an individual that has destroyed the lives of many people. Saying that some anti-war people will be "happy" that some guy killed 16 civilians and destroyed many lives is a far cry from saying that some people "revel" in military failings. You're backtracking. Moreover, anti-war people are usually anti-war because they cannot stand it when things like this happen so it seems like you, as you often do, are twisting what people actually stand for in order to smear people you disagree with.
 
Being in a war is a mind bending experience, it brings out the best in some, the worst in others and now and then somebody just snaps. We owe no apology for one of our soldiers snapping during the process of trying to liberate Afghanistan from tyranny.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Being in a war is a mind bending experience, it brings out the best in some, the worst in others and now and then somebody just snaps. We owe no apology for one of our soldiers snapping during the process of trying to liberate Afghanistan from tyranny.
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Yes, we do. And you know what? I'm really sick of this blindingly prideful mentality that people use to evaluate the US military. The man killed 16 CIVILIANS. Even if the toils of war made him snap, even if our military is doing the best it can and even if the United States is the objective "good guy" of the world, honorable people and nations apologize when they are wrong - they apologize when they or one of their citizens commit callous actions beyond the scope of combat while officially representing the country. It doesn't make us weak and it doesn't mean we are any less "good". In fact, it makes us better.
 
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