Fortunately, military tribunals don't care. The guy killed 16 people in cold blood. His ONLY defense is the PTSD side, and I don't think that's going to fly here...
Hopefully it won't and the UCMJ will be followed to the letter in this case. Of course if you listein to karzai there had to be more then just this one guy doing the killing. Oh and I find it funny that the taliban want him turned over to them for a trial. Yeah as if, maybe we should tell them we will trade this troop over for mullah omar. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/17/us-afghanistan-idUSBRE82G03F20120317 Well I am not sure why he thinks 1 Special Forces Staff Sgt. couldn't do what he did, that it would take more then 1 person, but that is his right to think what he wants. I hope Obama decides to just pull all our troops from the country. Start bringing them home now with the goal of moving all our equipment and troops home by June. And when the taliban start opening up camps again, I am sure we can take appropriate military action against them.
He isn't special forces. Regular infantryman. I think the villagers are actually still insisting there were troops there, not just one. US military says they're confused about the timeline. On the abstract argument, one guy couldn't do this, people said the same thing about OJ. I guess it makes people feel safer to be delusional about what an armed attacker can do against unarmed victims taken by surprise.
Of course there were troops there. They needed to investigate what happened and collect evidence. Read the quotes from Karzai and others. You can tell they're intentionally misunderstanding or misstating the truth in order to make political hay: From The Guardian So some village elders conclude (based on god knows what) that it's not possible for one person to commit the killings. That's nice. Everything that Karzai is fomenting a collective freakout about is based not on evidence, but on the word of people who weren't there, didn't actually see what happened, or are quite obviously confused about the timeline and lashing out by claiming the most damning option.
It's more than that. See this article/transcript of victim's families talking to Karzai and his ministers. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/03/201231862852921747.html A victim's brother (and uncle?) is straight up telling them that his sister-in-law was an eyewitness, and that there were multiple Americans in the room. What's Karzai supposed to say, I have no clue but I believe what the Americans tell me over your eyewitnesses whose families have been massacred? And Bales was cutting off hands? We just don't know the full story yet, except that there are eyewitnesses contradicting the US military, vehemently.
Why is he speaking for his sister-in-law? It reminds me of the my brothers cousin went to school with her sister so she knows me. If I am not mistaken they show him on video leaving the base alone and coming back alone correct?
A precedent that may be followed for this case? http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-10/...an-civilians-phillip-stackhouse?_s=PM:JUSTICE
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-18/afghanistan-setbacks-may-lead-to-pre-election-u-s-exit.html The sooner they come home the better.
Probably because of a woman's place in their village's culture. I haven't heard anything about video of him leaving, not sure why.
The same culture that values a woman's testimony as half of a man's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_women's_testimony_in_Islam Not video, but a report that he walked from the base alone, past the sentry, who immediately notified others, who set out after him: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...-afghan-massacre/story-fnb64oi6-1226298022670 "The bearded soldier in civilian clothes, night-vision goggles and armed with his weapon and spare ammunition ... approached the lone Afghan soldier standing guard ... He walked past him into the night without saying a word ... The unexpected departure of the US Army staff sergeant ... led to an instant alert. ... the Afghan on guard duty warned his chain of command that a soldier had left the base with his weapon. The officer commanding ... ordered everyone out of their beds for a head count. ... There was a man missing. ... The officer ordered a small patrol to leave immediately to search for the staff sergeant ... the heavily armed patrol of special operations troops headed in the same direction as the soldier but could not find him. The first trace of him was when he emerged in the pre-dawn gloom and re-entered the base. He handed himself over after revealing what he had done."
After revealing what he had done? I don't think he ever confessed. His lawyer says he has no memory of what happened after he left the base.
Wish I had a dollar, for every person who made a comment about what they had just done, then later claimed to have no memory of either the comment, or the incident itself! Especially after consultation with their attorney! http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...stan-massacre-lawyer-article-1.1047425?pgno=1
Yep, them are some standard instructions from defendants over here. "Your worships, my client greatly regrets his actions and is at a loss to explain himself. He recalls going to the pub, and recalls leaving the pub, but unfortunately the bit where he hit the injured party over the head with a bottle is all a bit of a blur".
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/intern...n_afghan_investigators_UuqhiRXbZw6DW32oHLnLUO If he did return & leave again, did he come back to reload? Could he have returned, and when no alarm occurred, headed out a second time?
Coordinated Taliban attacks across Afghanistan, currently ongoing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17720617
The flowers bloom, the weather gets warmer and the Taliban sends some people out to attack, it must be spring in Afghanistan
Taliban suicide bomber generates Pulitzer Prize winning photo: (Warning: graphoc image) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...rmath-suicide-bombing-kabul-article-1.1062636 So, does killing 17 women & children, earn you a spot in heaven?
Where do you think they get all the virgins from? killing children creates heaven virgins. On a serious note, some ultra-conservative Taliban are targeting girl schools because they feel is against their "whatever" to educate girls. The NPR story claims that over 3 million girls have started school since the invasion, something that was illegal under the Taliban. But the government of Karsai has many religious conservatives that are putting pressure on him to roll back some of his more liberal laws regarding women, but foreign aid donors are pulling the other way demanding more freedoms and rights for women. So Karsai is having to balance those two forces.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-afghan-photos-20120418,0,5032601.story Let's see who gets worked up the most about this.
Let's see who gets worked up the most about this: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/us-afghanistan-women-idUSBRE83G0PZ20120417
Seriously. This isn't even a "western corruption" thing. This is basic, basic education. How ********ing backward does your thinking have to be when you hate the idea of girls being able to do basic marketplace math and to read basic documents so much that you're willing to kill them en masse? Oh, right... so backward that you consider women property and not human beings...