Yes 16 people reported by CNN. Remains me of a movie where some dudes has his family killed by a suicide bomber so he goes to a mosque and shoots the people inside the mosque, he then joins the Serbian Military so he can kill Bosnian's, I forget the name, a sad movie.
A truly disgusting act by this Staff Sgt. who is a member of SF as I have read it. Went out at 3 A.M., his leaving was reported by Afghan troops and a patrol was sent out to look for him and after he committed his crimes he turned himself into the patrol. This guy served in iraq, but this was his first time in Afghanistan. I hear the afghans want him turned over, but I think he should first face court martial from the US, his crimes do fit a capital punishment offense under the UCMJ. I don't think we should turn him over to the afghans though. There is no way he would get anything related to a fair trial there. Of course the taliban are saying they will get revenge, as if they need any other reason to attack international or US troops....
My understanding is one of the goals in an insurgency is to provoke the ruling power into attacks on civilians (in order to undermine support for the ruler). So whaterver else this is (a tragedy, etc.), it is also a victory for the Taliban.
And I'm sure that one of the primary aims of a counter-insurgency is to undermine the morale of the insurgents, so no doubt this is a great victory for the USA as well
How would this undermine the morale of the insurgents? Would seem to have the opposite effect. It's interesting that so far the public Afgan reaction is not nearly as strong as the Koran burning - which shows U.S. forces were not properly trained on how important Islamic materials are to the Afgans - basically more important than life.
This is a lot less inflammatory. Unfortunately, the Afghans are used to supervised US forces killing civilians by accident, so a psycho acting alone is not going to whip them into a frenzy.
There was an attack on the Afghan Government delegation that went to meet the Kandaharis today. Probably restricted to small arms fire. Four dead - One Afghan government soldier and three militants, according to the Beeb. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17349736 According to the report they attacked during a prayer service, which is reprehensible.
Maybe the unrest relating to this is just ramping up; also I read that the civilians in the area of the massacre have been caught between the Taliban and the U.S. for a while and, while they may protest, they'll be cautious about it and probably not riot. On the other hand, there are Taliban in the area who can launch attacks like the one mentioned above.
Umar a serious question here, will there be anywhere near the level of outrage over this attack during a prayer service as there was over the Staff Sgt. going dumbshit or the burning of qurans that were being written in by taliban to use as a communications tool?
I don't know, honest answer is I doubt it. They will probably justify it on the basis that the people praying were not in fact Muslims but apostates, since they work as tools for the Americans who are occupying a Muslim country. So many probably won't see it as an attack on a prayer service. I disagree with them. I wouldn't compare the attack with the recent murders though, those were in a different league altogether.
I wouldn't compare what the staff sgt. did with this, but I think we both agree that murder is murder and attacking unarmed people be it in their homes or in a prayer service is wrong.
I don't think they were attacking unarmed people. Karzais two brothers were there, with military and top security officials.
The shooting is starting to have quite an effect. It will be interesting to see if Karzi backs off this point. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/us-afghanistan-idUSBRE82B1F820120315
From the article: What the staff sgt. did was wrong and he deserves punishment, but when you see this above, you have to wonder where is the outcry against the taliban for these murders? Also had this been an afghani who committed the murders would there have been any outcry at all? All the more reason for the US to come home and leave afghanistan.
Also from the article: Karzai said he and Panetta had agreed to work toward a handover of security to Afghan forces in 2013, a year earlier than the 2014 deadline for the NATO pullout. I wonder how long Karzi thinks he will last after the pullout.
Karzai isn't being propped up by the US military, surely? I thought he was leader because he had the support of the vast majority of the Afghan population, as the free and democratic elections showed, so obviously he will be there for a very long time
It's amazing how much sympathy this US soldier is getting here in the US. If it was 9 little American girls murdered I don't think the same people would care too much about the criminal's hard life.
Man, I'm blown away by the reaction of sympathy for this US soldier that massacred women and little girls in Afghanistan, and then I check out the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. 500 unarmed villagers massacred and only one US soldier is convicted, and spends only 3.5 years under house arrest before going free. He's only 68 now, most of his platoon that was never charged are probably still alive as well. The public at that time, including many officials, were outraged when he was first sentenced to life in prison. What a travesty of justice. Will this be any different?
I haven't been paying all that much attention, but is he really getting a lot of sympathy? And does it really matter?
Yeah, and it's not just the comments sections of the newspapers. The press reports are highly sympathetic, mostly playing up what a great guy he is. Meanwhile the victims aren't being mentioned much, not even the ages of the children.
Job advancement issues. Ok. Money problems. Sure. Potential PTSD. Fine. All that makes a lovely narrative for the media, which is what pays the bills. But FFS, how any of that can even be suggested as anything even approaching a defense for what he did is almost unfathomable. My guess (and hope) is that the military ignore the press altogether on this and he never leaves Leavenworth again.