OT - US Soldier kills 16 Civilians in Afghanistan

[Webstral]

TicToc, I salute you for having the intestinal fortitude and integrity to apologize to perfect strangers. Well done.

[Cdnwolf]

(Sticking head up from foxhole)... Is it safe to come out

[B.T.]

Wow, what a thread!

@ TicToc:
I think, it was a good thing to apologize. Well done!
So, welcome to the board!

@ all Vets:
In a way, I'm a vet myself. I was "only" a conscript and I have no combat experience. But I can understand the bad feelings towards people, who only criticize (and often in an unfair way!) the military, not seeing the good sides. This certainly sucks.
I had a lot of arguments with people, because I defended the military. Especially in the end of the cold war period, a lot of Germans forgot about the necessary of alert forces. The current situation in the U.S. seems to be similar.
But I think, we can assume, that the vast majority of the board-members have a more positive attitude towards the military in general.

@ those, who reacted to my last post:
Thanks, gents, for your encouragement and support. This means a lot to me!

@ CdnWolf:
I'm fine with that.
BTW: Did you ever read Medic's sig

[pmulcahy11b]

Am I the only one who thinks that the soldier should be turned over to the Afghanis for trial

[Targan]

Am I the only one who thinks that the soldier should be turned over to the Afghanis for trial

I think that would be the right thing to do but US is generally totally opposed to handing over its citizens (and especially soldiers) for trial by other countries, isn't it And the last few US governments have publicly expressed support for non-US criminals to be tried by the International Criminal Court but have refused to allow US citizens to fall under its jurisdiction.

[Eddie]

I think that would be the right thing to do but US is generally totally opposed to handing over its citizens (and especially soldiers) for trial by other countries, isn't it And the last few US governments have publicly expressed support for non-US criminals to be tried by the International Criminal Court but have refused to allow US citizens to fall under its jurisdiction.

Not totally. There have been a number of cases where US citizen have been tried by a foreign nation. When the possibility of capital punishment is present we tend to get a little more territorial until the State Department weighs in and forces our hand one direction or the other.

[Fusilier]

Over 2,500 Americans end up in foreign prisons every year and very few get an early released (sometimes they split their time between both countries if they are lucky). The rare exception is when capital punishment is involved as Eddie mentioned. I've been to a Thai prison visit and have seen Americans who've been locked up in there for many years (almost ten at the time).

Although these people are subject to the laws and penal system of the host country, and basically forfeit whatever rights they had in the US, it seems to be a rarity for a service member to not be immediately repatriated. It does appear to be a double standard... although I don't know if that is an accurate term for it.

[Medic]

I think that would be the right thing to do but US is generally totally opposed to handing over its citizens (and especially soldiers) for trial by other countries, isn't it And the last few US governments have publicly expressed support for non-US criminals to be tried by the International Criminal Court but have refused to allow US citizens to fall under its jurisdiction.

The U.S. actually asked for the British to hand over the young man, who had kept a link site, from where people could find links to pirated movies. The guy had not provided the movies himself, only the links to those hosted by others and yet he is probably going to be transported to U.S. for trial. If it had been a U.S. citizen and the British had wanted him for the same, it would have become far more complicated as the agreement between the two is unbalanced - for the U.S., only a suspicion is enough while the Brits would need evidence to actually have any chance of getting an U.S. citizen for trial. And no, this is not a rant about U.S. citizens. Just an example of double standards that are going to get more and more common, especially with the SOPA/PIPA.

[simonmark6]

As a Brit, I blame our side for the inequality rather than the Americans. We signed up to it and we knew that once a law was in place to would be used in a way other than in the spirit. UK Councils have used anti-terrorist legislation to put surveillence on people who dump rubbish, we couldn't expect anyone else not to do the same.

[95th Rifleman]

The US has always been very wary of war crimes issues. They are reluctant to allow their servicemen to stand trial in any other forum than an American court.

Part of it is a reputation thing as the US government has always been keen to be seen as the "good guys", having a soldier in the Hague on trial for warcrimes is not a good image. Better to have that same soldier on the lesser charge of murder in an American court.

This is not being anti-American, it's just a fact.

[Medic]

The US has always been very wary of war crimes issues. They are reluctant to allow their servicemen to stand trial in any other forum than an American court.

Part of it is a reputation thing as the US government has always been keen to be seen as the "good guys", having a soldier in the Hague on trial for warcrimes is not a good image. Better to have that same soldier on the lesser charge of murder in an American court.

This is not being anti-American, it's just a fact.

Yes, having a soldier stand trial at Hague for warcrimes is not good for the national image, but I wonder if they realize, it's not pretty good for the image either not to hand the guy over to Hague, when the case is pretty clear

[95th Rifleman]

Yes, having a soldier stand trial at Hague for warcrimes is not good for the national image, but I wonder if they realize, it's not pretty good for the image either not to hand the guy over to Hague, when the case is pretty clear

There are allot of factors in this, many of them poltical. The president that allows a US soldier to stand before the Hague tribunal is the president that loses his next election. The "good guy" idea has been ingrained in the American national consciousness since WW2 and was reinforced during the cold war when America was considered the bastion of the free world defending good against the evils of communism.

This is the heart of the reason why many Americans react so extremely to percieved "anti-Americanism", the concept that America may not be the good guys goes against everything the average American has been taught from a very early age.

In Europe we long ago lost any pretence that we are somehow better than everyone else. During the colonial era we Europeans had a similar self-rightous, self image. We where the civilised world freeing priitive peoples from the shackles of their barbaric cultures and religions, we belived that we where genuinely doing these people a favour by taking over their country.

The horrors of two world wars and the realisation that we can be so easily sink to the worst depths of human nature rather destroyed this self-image and gave rise to the fall of colonialism in the decades following WW2.

So we have this situation where a minority of American soldiers prove that yes, they are actualy human and suffer from the same human failings everyone else is prone to. Non-Americans, some who feel umbrage at the high moral and ethical horse America has rode since the end of WW2 point to these events, often going over the top to make their example using offensive and patronising language. In response Americans react in a sometimes extreme fashion to defend what they see as their rightful position as the god guys, feeling that the rest of the world owes them a debt of gratitude. Any fellow Brit who has had to sit through an arrogant, often ignorant, lecture from an American about how "they saved our arse in two world wars" can sympathise with this point.

It's a cultural issue one that stems from the cold war and will take many, many years to resolve itself.

[Eddie]

Yes, having a soldier stand trial at Hague for warcrimes is not good for the national image, but I wonder if they realize, it's not pretty good for the image either not to hand the guy over to Hague, when the case is pretty clear

It's more a case of preventing the precedent from being established than being worried about our national image. Contrary to the statement that we see ourselves as the good guys, those of us who are not lemmings know that Bad Things happen in war and much of it goes unreported. We also know that there are many nations that are just itching to take out the last 70+ years of US foreign policy on the first one of us they can slice off of the herd. So it's more of a preventive measure to keep the flood gates in place.

[Targan]

Any fellow Brit who has had to sit through an arrogant, often ignorant, lecture from an American about how "they saved our arse in two world wars" can sympathise with this point.

Ah, then I'm sure you can appreciate how sick I and other Australians are of being told "you'd be speaking Japanese if we hadn't come and saved you". As I recall I've even had to put up with that patronising crap on this very forum, a few years ago.

[Webstral]

Given that its an election year, I would put the odds that an American soldier would be sent to the Hague for a war crimes trial somewhere south of zero. Im not defending the practice. Im being realistic about outcomes.

As for whether oewe (I wasnt involved) saved the UK, Australia, France, or anyone else during WW1 or WW2, it would be interesting to see what would have happened in an alternate reality in which the Japanese did not bomb Pearl Harbor or in which Hitler did not take leave of his senses and declare war on the US. Would the UK and the USSR have been able to defeat Nazi Germany without American aid This is open question, not a question meant to imply that the answer is no. Nor is the question meant to imply that yall ought to sit and listen to speeches about how we saved you, because most Americans alive today had nothing to do with it, regardless of the relative importance of American involvement.

Im less concerned with the self-righteousness than the willingness to act under that assumption. The self-righteous who sit on their hands are annoying but innocuous. The self-righteous who have the power and motivation to act are a problem. The combination of self-righteousness, perceived national interest, and perceived might is a very dangerous combination.

The latest horror perpetrated by Americans in uniform will inspire a new round of CYA from brigade downward; but the problem isnt a brigade or division or even corps problem. Iraq and Afghanistan reflect poor strategy. Our poor strategy is an outgrowth of our hubris, the parochialism of much of our leadership, and frankly our failure to develop good human intelligence or pay much heed to the HUMINT we have. I remain convinced that the plan for victory in Afghanistan should have come out of the Special Forces community and that had our leadership been willing to pay the monetary and political price for a sufficient effort for victory we would be much further along. We werent willing to take steps that matched the realities on the ground in Afghanistan, though; and we werent willing to make any genuine commitments or sacrifices as a nation or in terms of political costs to get the job done as it needed to be done. So here we are more than a decade later still trying to wedge our square peg into a round hole.