A US Serviceman kills 16 Afghan people

Explosions in the Sky

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-03-11/afganistan-civilian-shootings/53472526/1 Here's the article, horrible stuff :mad:

Manic Moran

Yep, doesn't do anyone any favours at all.

NTM

Explosions in the Sky

Manic Moran wrote: »

Yep, doesn't do anyone any favours at all.

NTM

Saw the thread in After Hours too Manic but I thought people in the military forum wouldn't jump on the band wagon like sometimes in after hours people do with stupid comments so I posted it here. It's a shame, the media will eat this up, terrible for the loss of life and even more the work the US are doing over there

Cardinal Richelieu

On a side note does the US Army have the death penalty?

Manic Moran

Yes.

Hasn't been implemented in a few years, but there are a couple of soldiers on Death Row right now.

A Dub in Glasgo

This guy deserves the death penalty. OP, a more accurate title would be 'A US Serviceman kills 16 Afghan civilians'

Reports of 9 children murdered, ffs

DipStick McSwindler

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KickstartHeart

Its the same with all military operations.

It just takes one or two absolute nitwits to completely throw away all the hard work and sacrifice given over years of trying to help a country in troubled times. It creates field day for those who wish for more blood-shed.

In Rwanda, a few il-discipliend Belgian paratroopers broke into homes of politicians who were openly against Belgium's part-taking in UMAMIR, and hammered them infront of their families. Completely destroyed the credibility of UNAMIR.

Imagine the damage this incident and the recent ones have done to ISAF's rep.

Discipline is key.

I would say this guy should have the book fully thrown at him as a deterrant to this kind of crap, but I read that he had had a mental break down. *Apparently*

So he can't exactly be executed or jailed for life if it was because he lost it.

Morpheus

Yes feeney,
you are correct,
the US,
sorry, the ENTIRE US ARMY (dastardly warmongering oil sucking machine that it is) have gone out of their way to make life more difficult for their allies...
Im sure this wasnt the acts of a couple of individuals, it was obviously a plan by the leadership to cause this mayhem... :rolleyes:

love your generalisation there, fantastic stuff, sad to say but this was an act by an individual, albeit a sick individual, and not one sanctioned by a higher power, yes it will effect others in the allied forces there, but ultimately it will hopefully have a small effect on the progress being made by the rest of ISAF.

go hug a tree or something.

DipStick McSwindler

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Morpheus

I'm not on a high horse, its a rather small pony...

Look you generalised and I countered your argument, albeit a tad sarcastically. you said

the US

have gone out of their way to make life difficult for their allies.

Between this incodent, the P*****G on of corpses and burning of the Koran the US really have went out of their way to make life a lot more difficult for soldiers in Afghanistan

I'm sure that the US DOD doesn't train soldiers to maim, kill and injure unarmed civilians in a warzone, they train soldiers, like other armies, to have and master controlled aggression.

Individuals can carry out atrocities for various reasons, such as in columbine or on Utoya Island in Norway, whether sane or not and I'm sure that after the investigation, we will hear about why this occurred and will see the US Army make changes in some form or other to reduce the chances of it happening again... but nothing is foolproof.

DipStick McSwindler

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Morpheus

Im in work. I cant be seen watching youtube videos! i will have to view it later tonight

Manic Moran

It's a former Marine basically saying that warfare is unpleasant and that in heavy street fighting civilians get caught up in it (Description of his time in Fallujah). Amazing revelation. "We took such heavy fire from a building that it was not feasible for troops to take it, so we called in an airstrike and destroyed the building. Civilians could have been hiding in there." "We couldn't take the front of a building due to heavy fire from the door and windows, so we blew a hole in the wall to get in the side. After we blasted through a wall, we discovered that we had killed some civilians on the far side of the wall"

Oh, and he was also saying that Bush was "allegedly re-elected", to applause.

NTM

Morpheus

If that's it, I don't see how that alludes to the statement that US forces are always heavy handed? In war tragedies occur... this was a tragedy with big ramifications, but he is one amongst thousands who HAVENT walked into a village and murdered innocents. Thats my point.

DipStick McSwindler

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johngalway

Though it would never happen, I think he should be given over to Afghan authorities for trial and punishment. Might make some think twice over doing things like it.

OS119

johngalway wrote: »

Though it would never happen, I think he should be given over to Afghan authorities for trial and punishment. Might make some think twice over doing things like it.

would he get a fair trial?

do you think he's done this for ****s and giggles or do you think he's had some kind of breakdown - in which case 'thinking twice about doing this kind of thing' doesn't come into it - he didn't/couldn't think once, let alone twice...

the normal situation for visiting forces would be that he'd be handed over to local judicial system - certainly for the UK - but that rests on a belief that he'd get a fair trial - do you believe that he would get a fair trial, or would it be a lynch mob?

A Dub in Glasgo

I think he would at least get a trial, not like those suspects rendered from various places to Guantanamo Bay!

johngalway

OS119 wrote: »

would he get a fair trial?

do you think he's done this for ****s and giggles or do you think he's had some kind of breakdown - in which case 'thinking twice about doing this kind of thing' doesn't come into it - he didn't/couldn't think once, let alone twice...

the normal situation for visiting forces would be that he'd be handed over to local judicial system - certainly for the UK - but that rests on a belief that he'd get a fair trial - do you believe that he would get a fair trial, or would it be a lynch mob?

No I don't think he'd get a fair trial at all, that's my point. The people he killed got no trial at all. To be absolutely blunt about it, better he turned the gun on himself rather than do what he did.

And before anyone says it I'm very far from a hand wringing anti-war leftie.

OS119

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

I think he would at least get a trial, not like those suspects rendered from various places to Guantanamo Bay!

so if the Americans hand this idiot over the lynch mob, i mean Afghan justice system, they have a moral free reign to send people off to dark corners never to be seen again?

if you believe that the detention without trial of those held at Gitmo is morally wrong, then you can't believe that the denial of justice to this bloke is correct without being a hypocrite.

if the Afghans had a justice system that could give him a fair trial then he should be tried by them - the offences occurred on Afghan territory, against Afghan citizens, by a person in Afghanistan there at the invitation of the Afghan government - however, they can't by any stretch of the imagination be said to have the ability/intention to have a fair trial at which he could be found not guilty, so he shouldn't be tried there.

Park Royal

He just left the base in the middle of the night........


thats alright then.......thats just grand......


guess theres no problem there then....

Morpheus

yep he'd get a fair trial,

if you call being immediately buried up to his neck in the ground and having his head smashed in by rocks.

Saying "Afghan justice" is like saying "Hitler's Tallit".

He's guilty alright, but by all that makes our society in the west what it is, he deserves a fair trial, whether that at times makes us sick to the pits of our stomachs or not... its one of the cornerstones of our justice systems in the west.

Dogwatch

The USA rarely hands over its service personnel to any other system of justice. They insist on dealing with it inhouse.

OS119

Dogwatch wrote: »

The USA rarely hands over its service personnel to any other system of justice. They insist on dealing with it inhouse.

not neccesarily true - when US service prersonnel in the UK have committed crimes against the local civilian population they get prosecuted by the UK authorities. i don't dispute that the US are a bit more anal about it than some others, but by and large where they have trust in the local justice system they are happy (ish?) to hand the alleged criminial over.

A Dub in Glasgo

OS119 wrote: »

so if the Americans hand this idiot over the lynch mob, i mean Afghan justice system, they have a moral free reign to send people off to dark corners never to be seen again?

if you believe that the detention without trial of those held at Gitmo is morally wrong, then you can't believe that the denial of justice to this bloke is correct without being a hypocrite.

if the Afghans had a justice system that could give him a fair trial then he should be tried by them - the offences occurred on Afghan territory, against Afghan citizens, by a person in Afghanistan there at the invitation of the Afghan government - however, they can't by any stretch of the imagination be said to have the ability/intention to have a fair trial at which he could be found not guilty, so he shouldn't be tried there.

'if you believe that the detention without trial of those held at Gitmo is morally wrong right, then you can't believe that the denial of justice to the victims is correct without being a hypocrite.'

I see it more like the above slight change to your paragraph

DipStick McSwindler

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OS119

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

'if you believe that the detention without trial of those held at Gitmo is morally wrong right, then you can't believe that the denial of justice to the victims is correct without being a hypocrite.'

I see it more like the above slight change to your paragraph

ah, so you believe that those accused of killing shouldn't have a fair trial because they didn't gve their victims a fair trial.

cheers, i'll remember that.

A Dub in Glasgo

OS119 wrote: »

ah, so you believe that those accused of killing shouldn't have a fair trial because they didn't gve their victims a fair trial.

cheers, i'll remember that.

No, I actually think the people who do not give a fair trial (or even a trial) when it comes to their foes or rivals, to be hypocritical if they then insist on fair trials for their own. In this case, the US and others who support what the US have done at Guantanamo Bay and then insist that they cannot hand over this killer due to lack of fairness in the justice system where he committed his crime.

DipStick McSwindler

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Morpheus

you wont see the US bury some alleged terrorist up to his neck in the sand and allow a crazy mob of overly god fearing 3rd world folks throw bricks at his head until it kills him...

gizmo555

Morphéus wrote: »

you wont see the US bury some alleged terrorist up to his neck in the sand and allow a crazy mob of overly god fearing 3rd world folks throw bricks at his head until it kills him...

No, they just employ tactics like these:

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau [of Investigative Journalism] for the "Sunday Times" has revealed . . .

. . . research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.

I had to laugh at the comments by the acting US ambassador to Afghanistan to the effect that the US abhors the killing of innocent civilians, when it has for years routinely employed these tactics, which are certain to result in widespread civilian casualties, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.

First Aid Ireland

Presumably the guy was very seriously mentally ill.

Talk of handing people like this over to regimes where they'll be treated brutally is premature (not that i think that's ever right, regardless of someone's mental state).

People do things like this very often because they have no control over their mind. Is there any point in handing someone who's mentally ill over to be tortured and beaten? Well if we're only interested in retribution, then yes. But if we're interested in preventing things like this happening, then the focus should be on identifying these type of people earlier and getting them out of warzones.

OS119

gizmo555 wrote: »

...whataboutary...

is there some relevence to this case here, or are the politics of a persons government the deciding factor in whether they as an individual should recieve justice or just be strung up?

is it not hypocritical - perhaps as hypocritical as the US can be - to protest against whatever you see as injustice by the US but not be fussed about it in other circumstances?

or is injustice ok as long as its an American who's on the end of a rope?

First Aid Ireland

gizmo555 wrote: »

. . . research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed

I'm not defending or condoning the loss of innocent life in war, but I'm just wondering how a figure of "between 282 and 535" civilians can be "credibly" reported.

I'm not for one second saying the figures are wrong. But if they were all that credible surely the lower estimate wouldn't be only 50% of the higher estimate.

gizmo555

OS119 wrote: »

is there some relevence to this case here

There is in my view. What justice did the civilians killed in the drone strikes mentioned receive? What greater hypocrisy could there be than the breast beating by the US ambassador over the civilian deaths in this incident, given the context of the routine slaughter of civilians by the US in drone strikes?

Morphéus is right - the US doesn't bury alleged terrorists up their necks in sand and stone them. Instead, they bury them up to their necks in the rubble of their houses and then kill anyone who has the temerity to attempt to rescue them. Or they kill lower level alleged terrorists in the hope that their superiors will attend their funerals so that they can bomb them, knowing that they will inevitably kill numerous civilians too.

Such tactics are IMO morally depraved and certainly don't warrant any claims of moral superiority over Morphéus's "crazy mob of overly god fearing 3rd world folks."

gizmo555

First Aid Ireland wrote: »

I'm not defending or condoning the loss of innocent life in war, but I'm just wondering how a figure of "between 282 and 535" civilians can be "credibly" reported.

I'm not for one second saying the figures are wrong. But if they were all that credible surely the lower estimate wouldn't be only 50% of the higher estimate.

A detailed explanation of the methodology used is here

The most relevant part to your question is probably this:

We report all instances where civilians are reported to have been killed or injured. Where accounts vary as to whether civilians or militants were killed, we report this and present a minimum and maximum reported number of casualties. We have also identified a number of cases where media sources refer only to ‘people’ killed (and not the more usual ‘militant’). Here we indicate that civilian casualties may be possible. Although we show a minimum and maximum range of civilians killed, other civilian deaths are likely to remain unreported, based on the findings of our field workers and others.

First Aid Ireland

There's not a lot of point in me reading about their methodology because I'm not a field statistician, so I'm not in a position to judge their methods. Most methods of collecting data have been validated externally, and people involved in its collection usually state this.

I'm just a little dubious about their numbers if they're getting such wide ranging results. usually standardised data collection methods give you similar results no matter who's doing them and are very reproducible, so that you can have a high level of confidence in their accuracy.

Like i said, its' not something I'm hugely bothered about. I was just curious about the broadness of their estimates and the simultaneous attachment of a "credible" label to the results/sources.

gizmo555 wrote: »

A detailed explanation of the methodology used is here

The most relevant part to your question is probably this:

We report all instances where civilians are reported to have been killed or injured. Where accounts vary as to whether civilians or militants were killed, we report this and present a minimum and maximum reported number of casualties. We have also identified a number of cases where media sources refer only to ‘people’ killed (and not the more usual ‘militant’). Here we indicate that civilian casualties may be possible. Although we show a minimum and maximum range of civilians killed, other civilian deaths are likely to remain unreported, based on the findings of our field workers and others.

gizmo555

First Aid Ireland wrote: »

I'm just a little dubious about their numbers if they're getting such wide ranging results. usually standardised data collection methods give you similar results no matter who's doing them and are very reproducible, so that you can have a high level of confidence in their accuracy.

I think the passage I quoted gives a succinct, understandable and reasonable explanation.

First Aid Ireland

gizmo555 wrote: »

I think the passage I quoted gives a succinct, understandable and reasonable explanation.

I think you're missing the point, though it's not a point that's worth huge argument.

If i say "I collected data from country X. My data collection tool was the Gizmo555 method, which has been shown to work when it was validated by Smith, johnston and mohammed in 2007. My results are.....". This is "credible" data.

If I say "I collected data from country X. I've used this data collection method. It's not been tested before to see how many people it misses and how many people it captures, and whether it captures people twice and a million other things, but it sounds smart. My results are....." this might be accurate data. But as things stand, it's not yet credible.

it's not a huge point. But i spent a lot of time in days of yore collecting population data and it's very very difficult and there's huge swathes of people missed and double counted and included or excluded incorrectly if you're not meticulous about your data collection tool. But the deeper argument is for another day i guess.

gizmo555

First Aid Ireland wrote: »

I think you're missing the point, though it's not a point that's worth huge argument.

No, I don't think I am. You asked a question, you've been given the short answer and referred to the longer answer. You don't accept the short answer but have said you won't make the effort to read the longer answer (which, by the way, expressly addresses the issues you've raised).

First Aid Ireland

gizmo555 wrote: »

No, I don't think I am. You asked a question, you've been given the short answer and referred to the longer answer. You don't accept the short answer but have said you won't make the effort to read the longer answer (which, by the way, expressly addresses the issues you've raised).

But it doesn't. It references a paper which asks for people to publish their methodology (the the very same reason I'm asking about it...ie so we know what collection tools people are using)

RMD

OS119 wrote: »

would he get a fair trial?

Reports state he gave himself up and admitted to it upon turning himself in. There's no "fair trial" in this as the trial is already decided, he's guilty and there's little else to be said. The only thing that will effect this trial is whether he is considered to be insane or not.

aero1310

The way I would think about it is how it would be handled if that were to happen in the US by someone from Afghanistan, he would most likely be called a terrorist and sentenced to death. But when it us, it becomes a mental disorder and 16 innocent lives are lost because someone had a "breakdown."

I have little sympathy for him. I don't really see it as a disorder. I see signs of anger; friends leg getting blown off, probably has seen lots of other friends die, marital issues, and sure there's is a lot of hate for the people that live there. A lot of build up and he let loose. A very poor decision.

Although Afgan may have a shotty government, I beleive they should have to right to trial him. But hes lucky because US Military has more power and there gonna take care of the situation.

Lemming

aero1310 wrote: »

I have little sympathy for him. I don't really see it as a disorder. I see signs of anger; friends leg getting blown off, probably has seen lots of other friends die, marital issues, and sure there's is a lot of hate for the people that live there. A lot of build up and he let loose. A very poor decision.

We have no idea what has happened here; scant details if even. To start making such self-assured proclamations of certainty is foolish and verging on sheer arrogance. Was it some guy who just felt the urge to kill and is now pleading mental illness to get out of a tough sentence? Or a genuine case of someone who has simply been pushed passed their boundary to cope with what they have to see, hear, & deal with every day and is basically suffering from PTSD? We do not know, and I doubt we will until more details start to come out from the investigation.

I really do not believe the Afghan authorities capable of an impartial investigation on this at present; the amount of corrupt political & religious pressure & meddling that would be brought to bear on those investigating would be insane regardless of competency levels with regards requisite standards of criminal, forensic & medical analysis. As much as it should also be the Afghans investigating crime in their country, the reality is the guy would not see a fair trial. In ten or twenty years? Who knows, but not today in my opinion.

Manic Moran

[Mod]Tenuous thread distraction deleted.[/Mod]

gizmo555

First Aid Ireland wrote: »

I'm not defending or condoning the loss of innocent life in war, but I'm just wondering how a figure of "between 282 and 535" civilians can be "credibly" reported.

I'm not for one second saying the figures are wrong. But if they were all that credible surely the lower estimate wouldn't be only 50% of the higher estimate.

This piece in today's (29/05/12) New York Times goes a long way towards explaining the disagreement over the numbers of civilians being killed in drone strikes:

. . . Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent . . .

This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the “single digits” — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.

But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it “guilt by association” that has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties.

“It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.”

Seems like we're back in the realms of "if he runs, he's VC; if he stands still he's well-disciplined VC."

tac foley

That's the problem, being at war with combatants who don't wear uniform.

I speak for real-life experinece.

tac

gizmo555

tac foley wrote: »

That's the problem, being at war with combatants who don't wear uniform.

I speak for real-life experinece.

tac

One can acknowledge the problem without necessarily concluding that the US's present "kill them all, God will know his own" response, while making a completely implausible pretence that all those killed are actually enemy combatants, is the solution.

As I think someone commented in the NYT article linked to, the policy means that if, for example, a drone strike hits a car killing a family of four, the father and, say, a teenage son are officially designated "militants" on no more evidence than their location, gender and age, while a mother and daughter in the same car are "civilians".

That discussion is probably better suited to the politics forums, but I just wanted to highlight the gross hypocrisy of the US ambassador's hand-wringing about the civilian deaths in this incident, while at the same time the US is pursuing policies and tactics which will inevitably result in widespread civilian deaths.

christmas2012

dreadful rip to those who lost their lives