US soldier empties the clip on sixteen afghan civilians

[WU LYF 4 LYF]

So an American soldier has gone on a murdering spree, splattering the blood of sixteen Afghans including nine children. Repercussions will no doubt be forthcoming. This is as good a chance as any to wonder why we're still in the country. We're unpopular, seemingly achieving little and the only upside is that we're diverting possible terrorists from attacking at home by stationing soldiers abroad for them to target.

 

Is anyone prepared to argue that we should still be there? What's everyone's thoughts on this massacre and what it will mean for the war?

 

And will it bring more publicity to mental illness amongst not just soldiers but citizens? The guy apparently had depression and had been in the middle of a breakdown, unsurprising given what he'd experienced. Does this excuse him?

 

A US soldier has shot dead 16 Afghan civilians, nine of them children, in a night-time shooting spree in a village outside his base in southern Afghanistan, a rampage the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said was "impossible to forgive".

 

The unprecedented attack on families asleep in their homes came as anti-foreign sentiment was already running high after Afghans discovered US troops had burned copies of the Qur'an at a military base.

 

That discovery prompted days of deadly violence. The killings in the early hours of Sunday morning are likely to fuel more anger across Afghanistan and raise questions in Kabul and the US about the future of an increasingly unpopular war.

 

About 1,000 people gathered to protest outside the Zangabad military base, in southern Kandahar province, as the bodies were prepared for burial and news of the killings spread throughout the area, a ribbon of mud adobe compounds interspersed with pomegranate orchards vineyards and fields of opium and marijuana.

 

Among the dead was a young girl in a green and red dress who had been shot in the forehead. The bodies of other victims appeared partially burned. A villager claimed they had been wrapped in blankets and set on fire by the killer.

 

Source: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/1...nistan-children

[bAzTNM#1]

Was the shooter found alive? Nobody is mentioning that.

[Magnum]

Was the shooter found alive? Nobody is mentioning that.

 

The Afghan authorities are arguing for the right to try him under Afghan law, so I'm assuming yes.

 

I think the question of his mental illness is moot, because I'd argue that the majority of serious war crimes (I'm thinking of things like My Lai as well as much of what went on in the Balkans) require some degree of psychopathy and detachment from reality. I think it would take a very strong mind not to suffer some kind of traumatic effects from the combination of the intermittent chaos out there and the mental conditioning that no doubt plays a part in creating the sort of killing machine the US military wants in that environment.

 

Whatever, it's created (or exacerbated) a shitstorm that will no doubt cost dozens of British and American servicemen (and potentially civilians) their lives in the coming weeks. As far as the question of whether we should still be there, I've got mates who've fought over there who argue passionately that we need to stay to 'finish the job' and ensure the stability of the new democracy. As much as their proximity to the situation gives them a closer insight into the culture than I'll ever have, I also worry that it affects their objectivity. My personal viewpoint is that, as much as it's a moral responsibility of the allies to try and ensure some sort of stability after the invasion, whether we pull out in 5 months or 50 years, it won't take long for the system in place to fall apart. Some cultures simply aren't suited to or accepting of the Western form of government.

[Astro Hollywood]

Funny how you never hear the phrase "mental breakdown" for other mass shooters, like the Virginia Tech guy, for example.

[Kenny McBride]

Heavily armed trained killer in murder shock. Sorry, was there a news story here?

[Chest Rockwell]

Yes, it is newsworthy.

 

Now stop being a dick.

[Quentin]

What is your point there Kenny? Don't train soldiers with firearms? Soldiers frequently go on civilian murder sprees?

[LaGoosh]

This is incredibly awful and will create serious politicial problems and also probably lead to lots of army and civilian casualties. Very depressing stuff. People might reply to this with the usual "why are we there?" stuff but the thing is this one incident may add even more years on the peacekeeping process.

 

This is a terrorist propaganda wet dream.

[Vito]

American soldier goes on shooting spree and kills civilians = Isolated incident brought on by a mental instability, sorry about that guys.

Brown person goes on a shooting spree and kills civilians = Islam forces people to become terrorists, all Muslims are potential killers.

[WU LYF 4 LYF]

Funny how you never hear the phrase "mental breakdown" for other mass shooters, like the Virginia Tech guy, for example.

 

Not true. From the Wikipedia page about the shootings;

 

"It sparked intense debate about gun violence, gun laws, gaps in the U.S. system for treating mental health issues"

 

"The Virginia Tech Review Panel, a state-appointed body assigned to review the incident, criticized Virginia Tech administrators for failing to take action that might have reduced the number of casualties. The panel's report also reviewed gun laws and pointed out gaps in mental health care as well as privacy laws that left Cho's deteriorating condition in college untreated".

 

I imagine you'll give some response about Wikipedia not being a viable source, but the article is well referenced with plenty of articles that back up the above.

[Astro Hollywood]

Funny how you never hear the phrase "mental breakdown" for other mass shooters, like the Virginia Tech guy, for example.

 

Not true. From the Wikipedia page about the shootings;

 

"It sparked intense debate about gun violence, gun laws, gaps in the U.S. system for treating mental health issues"

 

"The Virginia Tech Review Panel, a state-appointed body assigned to review the incident, criticized Virginia Tech administrators for failing to take action that might have reduced the number of casualties. The panel's report also reviewed gun laws and pointed out gaps in mental health care as well as privacy laws that left Cho's deteriorating condition in college untreated".

 

I imagine you'll give some response about Wikipedia not being a viable source, but the article is well referenced with plenty of articles that back up the above.

 

In the news reports, I mean. It immediately stood out to see the phrase 'mental breakdown' rather than CRAZED GUNMAN. Someone shoots up a school, and within hours we've got reems of details about what a creepy loner they were.

[Halitosis Romantic]

The fucking bullshit vitriol that I've seen from the right-wing already is just ridiculous. Just horrible cunty nonsense about how it's probably a retaliation attack, how the Afghans can't be allowed to get their hands on this "patriot", and that they should play by the same rules.

[LaGoosh]

It's a really fucking tricky situation for Obama because he has two main options:

 

1) Lock the guy up in a US mental asylum getting the support of the US people, but at the same time losing a shit load of support from Afghanistan.

 

2) Give the guy over to an Afghanistan court who will probably have him hanged and he loses huge support from the American public and US military and possibly loses the next election.

 

It's a real shit sandwich. Most likely he'll go for option one, just for his own political survival.

[Halitosis Romantic]

Actually, just realized that someone I'd added on Facebook was on the "Obama is a Muslim, sent to to destroy the USA from within" train, so they're now removed from my list. Cold comfort for the families of the deceased, I know.

[Vice]

This is an appalling incident, of course. As for, "Why are we still there?", we should have never been there in the first place. The entire War on Terror has been an unnecessary, monstrous catastrophe that's littered with with the gravest of war crimes and mass destruction and has backfired royally by amplifying terrorism (the kind they do to us, it doesn't count the other way around) and hatred against us.

 

One of the reasons incidents like this one, the Kill Squad (soldiers hunting Afghan civilians for sport and keeping body parts as trophies), pissing on corpses, the Haditha Massacre (soldier shooting 24 civilians in their homes), the eager and gleeful extrajudicial killings shown in the Wikileaks video and the 100+ who've died because of our torture, is because Arabs are seen as less human than us. In Taxi to the Dark Side, a documentary about the US's use of torture, soldiers say explicitly that they were told to treat the Afghan and Iraqi people like dogs. Their lives are worth less than ours, they're sand niggers, they're savages.

 

There is a deep-rooted racism that underlies these incidents and is certainly a factor. I think we as a country need to address this. And maybe then we'd be far less willing to go to war.