America, WHAT are you doing??

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One month after US soldiers burnt copies of the Koran (how incomprehensibly stupid), there's now been a mass murder by a US soldier in Afganistan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17332398

Apparently he just stalked house to house killing innocent civilians, including children. Why was this allowed to happen?

Honestly, if a bomb or something goes off in retaliation to what's going on over there, and kills a whole bunch of US soldiers, I don't think they have any right to complain.

Anti-US sentiment is bad enough as it is in that area, actions like have been happening need to STOP. For Gods sake, be CAREFUL if you're going to station troops in the ME!

 

It's like when you compare the number of 'allied' civilian deaths to the amount of civilian deaths over there, they've lost huge amounts of innocent people more than us. Guess the western world haven't grown out of the whole 'it's ok, they're barbarians' mentality yet

 

Dividing the world into "us" and "not us" never changed, and I doubt it ever will. That said, though, it was a really horrible case, both on its own merits and what it may cause. There will always be a few people with underlying issues, and probably this guy has been too tense for too long. Well, after what's happened I doubt a genuine, heartfelt "sorry" will suffice. Of course, it has little to do with what "America" is or wants, but it won't be seen that way in the Middle East.

Didn't such incidents get somewhat common around the final years of the Vietnam war?

 

Yes, let's blame an entire nation for the actions of one psycho.

 

Ridiculous premise Barmy. This was a single person doing a criminal act, not America. IMO he needs to turned over to the Afghan authorities -- but that's not going to happen. He'll be given a trial in the US and, because we won't bring any witnesses over here, he may get off with a slap on the hand -- THAT would be tragic and very appropriate for "America, WHAT are you doing."

Shaman: Define 'common' -- I think you've been watching too many movies and assuming they were based on fact, or that each atrocity in the movies is based on separate acts. Not the case.

 

^ I agree.
You cannot blame a nation for the transgression of a few...be they even the lobby-owned political leaders.

The last time a group of marines went ballistic , they only received a scolding.
Don't remember the names now.

But it's that kind of thing, that wears down the credibility of any Military institution.

It's important to constantly monitor the psyche of Army personnel in times of war.

 

This is a murderer, so he should be punished accordingly. I'm usually opposed to the death penalty, but this is an exception. The US would probably gain favour with the Afghans if they hung him publicly on a place in Kandahar, as a sign to both Afghans and US troops alike. That measure would also probably prevent retaliation from the clan the people he murdered belonged to.

 

I read an interview with Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan and the reporter asked if it wasn't dangerous for them there and the soldiers replied something like this: As long as we make sure that everyone knows that we aren't Americans we are perfectly safe and people are happy to see us and work with us. It should be noted that two Swedish soldiers have died in Afghanistan although one of them most likely from friendly fire so perfectly safe may be a bit of an exaggeration.

 

A bit misleading, but no biggie, now that things are rolling!

 

Please don't damn my OTT title, it got you reading didn't it!

But no seriously, asking a grieving father to distinguish between American soldiers, and certain idiots is a bit of a stretch. I'd probably be the same. Bruno is right when he says this guy should be handed over to the Afghans, but that will never happen. They will just end up waiting for the dust to settle then giving the guy a slap on the wrist. If a guy went around America shooting innocent kids, a lot not even yet 6 years old, the outcry would be horrendous and he'd be on death row before you can say 'change gun legislation'.

Questions need to be asked at how a quite obviously unstable loon was in the army in the first place, and was allowed to just wander off base with weaponry. It really is shocking, and burning Korans was incredibly stupid as well. I wouldn't be surprised if this comes to a head soon, and some insurgent does something crazy in return. You need to be so, so careful when you're stationing troops in someone elses country. Trust me, us 'Brits' are quite practised at it.

 

Evidently, this was the guy's 3rd tour of duty between Iraq/Afghanistan. There were no problems previous to this. I think the guy snapped. That doesn't excuse his actions in any way. But I don't think there was reason to suspect he was a loon before this, as his previous two tours were served without suggesting anything like this would happen.

 

Oh sure, now you're blaming this on the lack of gun controls!

 

Some people snap under those conditions, this looks like such an incident as it is clearly a psychotic killing spree - I wonder if others noticed any changes in his behaviour prior to this or if this soldier discussed the stress he must have been feeling with others or even requested help or a transfer, if he did then I would argue that the US millitary could be partly to blame for not seeing that one of their soldiers was in trouble.
Either way this man should face charges for his actions, I dont think handing him over to the Afghans would be an answer because that would just be a revenge death, a millitary trial is proper and some millitary trials are more strict than criminal trials.

---------- Added 4 hours, 23 minutes and 33 seconds later... ----------

Hmmm:

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16186790

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa072972

 

You are right, I did write "somewhat common", but I meant it more like whether they were happening often enough to "set a tone," so to speak. I was basically asking how frequent such things were then.