US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'

Sounds like its time for a good old fashioned mass hanging.

 

It saddens me that this isn't a major story. FWIW -

The Seattle Times reported this several weeks ago

yet it is on BS where I hear of this for the first time. Pretty ********ing pathetic.

 

This isn't a story because it really isn't a story.

Unless you believe these are the only soldiers in both Afghanistan and Iraq who have committed crimes like this. The illegal murder of civilians is one of the many splendid things that go had in hand with (modern) warfare.

It's naive to think stuff like this isn't/wasn't going on.

 

My point is that when you send an army that numbers in the thousands into an area that puts their young minds into a perpetual mental presser cooker then some nutjobs will go over the top. It's inevitable.

Stories like this, along with "regular" collateral damage are just part of the realities of warfare.

 

One of them had the Colonel Jessup quote on his Facebook page. Oh dear...

 

One of the soldiers is from Wasilla, Alaska.

 

So?

 

Not really, we had a similar incident that was reported upon in Iraq where a unit group raped and then killed a young girl and her family.

Things like this will always happen in a war zone. If your army counts in the thousands, you will always have a few instable individuals who crack under the constant pressure and lose all grip of reality and morals.

 

It somehow usually happens in groups though and they manage to cover for each other alot. Of course, most of that's down to the "the military way" of sticking together as a unit no matter what.
I wonder if they end up tracing it to all the gang member they let in the military because they were short of bodies. No reported reason to wonder that, I just do.

This happens in all wars it seems, but you really have to demand more of your commanding officers/noncoms so it stops happening.

 

Small world.

I wouldn't assume that the soldiers who commit these types of crimes cracked under pressure. They may not have been good people when they entered the military and were already predisposed to commit bad acts.

In both of the incidents you mention, the crimes involved a high degree of planning and cold blooded efforts to try to conceal the crimes.

 

Winning the hearts and fingers of the local population

 

Name me a similar scale conflict that lacked such incidents. I honestly can't think of any.

It's just one of the many ********ed up consequences of warfare. Perhaps the world would be better off if we were confronted more often with its ugly visage.

 

aaand this is why winning hearts and minds while being an occupying power never works. can you imagine how many enemies/terrorists we've created in the last 10 years. it's one thing to get involved to depose a brutal dictator, or to rid the country of another occupying force, but if you don't get out as soon as that task is accomplished, you will soon wear out your welcome, as the people realize that you're now the occupying force, and they just exchanged one master for another. and winning hearts and minds while fighting an indigenous guerilla army is just about impossible.

 

so I guess we should just turn a blind eye to it and assume that this is the way things are and always have been. let's not even prosecute these people. this is just what happens in a war zone.

 

Great report on how unskilled some of the translators walking around with our troops are. Of course it's run by a private company. One old tribal leader is being asked by soldiers what's going on and he says "I just told you, there is no security here!" The translator replies to the soldier "he says everything is fine, there are no problems here."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/afgha...ters-speak-afghan-languages/story?id=11578169

 

agree. this is Mi Lai - level kind of stuff. and it's not justifiable simply based on the fact that it's a war zone. even in a war zone, by far, most soldiers don't do this kind of stuff. this is more like some demented individuals with a certain pre-disposition taking advantage of the situation. if this type of person wasn't in the army killing civilians overseas, he would probably be an officer of the peace in some US city or town also abusing the power of the badge to the best of his abilities - just because he can, and because it makes him feel better.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing that this kind of stuff is rampant throughout the army, but at the same time, let's not understate the seriousness of these crimes, and let's make sure that justice gets done, rather than brushing it aside as something that is typical in a war zone.

 

I never said these individuals should not be tried and sentenced.

 

But it is, unfortunately. That's my entire point. People need to understand that this is a part of war. It's more criminal to detach it from war and treat it as an incident that is completely separate from the act of warfare.