The Afgahnistan shooting in the news

[USAF Medic]

This is a clear case of PTSD. Look at how many times this guy has been deployed and kept in combat.
I hope everyone reading this will contact their representatives and demand that this soldier be moved from prison, to a hospital. We can't keep deploying the same guys over and over again. Something must change.

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[slimmer13]

I thought PTSD made you have flashbacks and nightmares, jump at backfires, fall into depression and have trouble readjusting to civilian life once you get out. Not shoot a bunch of kids in the head. Its clearly sad and tragic but there was obviously underlying issues. There are members of the SF community that are approaching double digit deployments. Do you think this guy can ever safely see the light of day again? Why bother trying to cure him?

 

[PaulZ]

World War II vets were away for 3 years or more and did not have a date to rotate home. WWII vets in Europe won their war then prepared themselves to go be killed invading Japan.
In Viet Nam Senior NCOs were returned over and over until they ran out of them.
Now the Army depends on National Guard units and an "all volunteer force"
Politicians protect themselves and themselves only. Need a larger army? How about a draft? Riots in the streets,right?
Maybe it is just the generation that cannot take it, maybe our country is screwing the pooch again.

 

[SonicBlue03]

The type of combat faced in WWII/Korea vs. now is a lot different. You're comparing apples to oranges. In those wars the enemy wore uniforms and shot from cover. Today they blow you up when you drive by an innocuous box of coke bottles or a doll. They also welcome you in as your friend and stab you in the heart when you try and care for their civilians.

Vietnam was the conflict that bridged from what conflicts were to what they were now. And you absolutely see a lot of PTSD/personal destruction in vets out of the Vietnam era. So comparing Vietnam to the Middle East is closer, but WWII/Korea to now isn't even remotely useful.

That said, they're going to give this guy the needle. Don't see much way around it unless we pull our troops out of the region, because if he doesn't get the needle then a lot more of our boys are going to die from more than just Taliban.

 

[PaulZ]

You are right Sonic, I stand corrected on the WWII comparison

 

[Jamie6.5]

It's not very often that I agree with SonicBlue, but I think he nailed it this time.

Good job '03!

 

[unklekippy]

Do people think this is an isolated incident? Do people think that soldiers(American or not) have not throughout time "cracked"? War is an ugly thing. Villages were slaughtered in Vietnam, Korea, Germany and everywhere else. The difference is, no one in Da Nang had a satellite phone with video capabilities. People think the world is a much worse place than it was 20 years ago. Guess what? We were screwed 20 years ago, only now we live in the "information age", allowing someone in Tulsa to know who farted in Beijing 5 seconds ago. Every time we see a video of a child being taken away by a stranger, a murder or a stack of Muslims at Abu Ghariab we think these are new crimes. Unfortunately, the crimes aren't new, the technology recording it is. The "evil" in humans has always been there. Only now do we get to see it recorded on the nightly news from every corner of the globe. Case in point, we have seen footage of men attempting to kidnap little girls in stores or on street corners. Those girls still disappeared(or got away) in the '50's. Just because we have film footage of JFK getting it, doesn't mean that the Lincoln assassination didn't happen. You know that vile taste in your mouth? That's our own media convincing us of what trash we are. Kip

 

[samuelm16]

i just dont see how he pulled it off solo, stacking bodies and burning them and all that?

 

[SonicBlue03]

You know that vile taste in your mouth? That's our own media convincing us of what trash we are. Kip

The vile taste in my mouth is due to our government and country letting down our military by not providing any form of comprehensive medical care and option to reintegrate into society. True, troops sign up for service and know there's a risk of deployment; that said I feel strongly that our nation and our governments (of all parties) have failed horribly in providing a level of care necessary to help troops re-adjust to civilian life.

I get that there are plenty of troops that do - and I think that's great. But I think there's a lot who suffer silently (internally, deal with failed marriages, have a hard time keeping a steady job, etc.) and then there are the extreme cases where people very publicly melt down. I want to see a larger effort to help those men and women have a better chance at having a successful life.

To me personally, that and increasing teacher salaries are things that I will be more than willing to pay more taxes for. But realistically this is a pipe dream. For one, that level of commitment and organization is something the government can't get right, and two they'd end up using those funds for things other than what they're intended for.

 

[Burt Gummer]

He didn't do all that alone.

My guess is things were just getting a little too organized and there was too much pressure for the occupiers to leave. So, naturally chaos and hate works to our advantage. There is just too much chance the Taliban will burn down the poppy fields again and we have crops to tend to; it is all about the drugs. Iraq oil - and more importantly control of how it is sold (in dollars); Afghanistan = drugs.

Same for the Russian/mob in the 80s. Has nothing to do with 'terrorists' or any scripted nonsense. But no one seems to notice, no one seems to care. As long as we are comfortable here, who cares about such things. Just give us our credit cards and LED 70" TVs, keep our fake ponzi economy going a little longer, long enough to wage a little more war, then they'll pull the plug and flush us.

 

[PaulZ]

Little kid bodies.

i just dont see how he pulled it off solo, stacking bodies and burning them and all that?

 

[unklekippy]

I cannot comment on whether he acted alone or not. I do think it is plausible to stack 11 bodies, some of which were small children, in the first house and light them on fire. I have no real knowledge of the forensic evidence, which I'm sure could identify pretty quickly whether there were one or more attackers. Whether or not we ever get the real story is a whole other matter. My point is that we are human and we have a breaking point. It happens on first deployments and fourth deployments and everywhere in between. That soldiers "cracking" and killing civilians or prisoners goes back to Greeks and Romans. It is a horrible effect of war that is more "in our face" because incidents are recorded and communicated across the world. That is in no way defending the level of treatment our soldiers receive nor is it suggesting that there shouldn't be more. If anything, one would think that incidents like this would lead to more and better treatment to help those that have suffered, internally and otherwise. PTSD has been and always will be a part of war. Unfortunately, it takes very public and tragic cases like this to bring it to light. I in no way intended to make light of the cross that each soldier bears in his or her own way, only to say that past generations bore the same cross, as will future generations. I agree that we owe it to our veterans to give them the care necessary to get back to "the real world". That's the least we owe them. Kip.

 

[Bigfoot]

Fiercely independent doesn't come close to describing Afghanistan. American politicians never did care much about history, maybe now they know why Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires". After 9/11 Afghanistan said that we were partially to blame for their country being taken over by the Taliban because after helping them defeat the Soviets we left, now we see what happens when we stay.

Compare the isolated, muted demonstrations after this to the reactions to the desecrated Koran burning. We Westerners can't get our heads around slaughtering nine innocent children, they shrug. Killing little kids, that's nothin, watch em dodge bullets as try to walk to school. They're culture is more valuable to them than life, I can respect that on some level but it also says that we don't comprehend each others values. This basic disconnect SHOULD tell us that THEY DON"T WANT US THERE. A short time after we leave the schools and hospitals we built will be rubble and all we have accomplished is disrupt the Taliban for ten years.

We always try to rebuild the countries that we invade, laudable and it sometimes even works but it won't there.

On a global chess board we have surrendered the two areas that we controlled that border Iran. We will leave both with no agreement on bases. Since this is the case, why occupy in the first place? One big, debt exploding, death dealing, enemy making clusterfk.

This is Obamas Abu Ghraib minus the wall to wall coverage.