Afghan Civilians Slaughtered By U.S. Troops

[Makalakumu]

1. I wasn't dodging, I was ignoring. Because the idea that veterans are apt to come home and flip out is insulting.

As more and more people come home from these wars (assuming they come home and aren't sent to Iran, Syria, or Central Africa next) we're going to have to deal with the emotional trauma these wars caused. One of the results of this trauma is violence.

2.How? You are a martial artist, defend yourself as you have trained, but, be aware that an armed man will kill an unarmed one with monotonous regularity...

I actually had this conversation yesterday with a friend. He described the basics of entering a house and how fast a team can "clear" it. I honestly don't know if I'd have a chance if someone entered my house. I have accessible weapons, but I've never shot anyone. If it came down to it, I'd protect my family with my life, but the best strategy, IMO, is going to be to restrict entry somehow and flee.

 

[Makalakumu]

People 'flip out', they can be service people or they can be civilians, they can be police officers or medics. Anyone can suffer from PTSD who's been through a trauma. Anyone can get mad at the world and try to destroy it. Police officers, firemen and medics deal with as many disturbing scenes and circumstances as service people do. We can't say all service people will flip, we can't say they won't. What we need to do is look at things in a calmer manner and stop looking for eay answers. Blaming service people is an easy option and absolves everyone else from any potential blame. The thing about service people however is that on the whole they are more disciplined than most civilians. Shootings like this don't happen often whatever some may think, perhaps less than in civilian life. I think I would worry about muggings, rapes and other violent crimes committed by civilians long before I worried about a service person going on the rampage. We've have several thousand here on the garrison since before the First World War and not once has a soldier go on the rampage, not even after that war which truly was a horror. At the moment we have have about 12000 soldiers here at it's height during the wars we've had 750,000 and some. We had a military psychiatric hospital here for a few years and even then we had no rampages, a few suicides yes. I think service people are more likely to destroy themselves than actually destroy others.

No one is "blaming" service people for anything. The emotional trauma of war can lead to violence in some people. I expect that if we keep sending people on tour after tour, place after place, we'll see all kinds of problems. One of them is going to be violence.

Also, some countries are better then others at dealing with it. It sounds like the British have a much more realistic approach from what you've written in the past. It doesn't surprise me that your country has far fewer problems with this, because of the shorter tours, the decompresson period, and greater access to health services. Maybe America's politicians could learn something from the British about treating their soldiers?

Another thing to consider is that certain bases have better reputations then others. For example, the base near my home is very orderly, clean, and has a low incidence of problems. Who ever is in charge there is doing an excellent job. On another part of the island, the base has a reputation for problems, it's dirty, and the crime rates are high. I have friends who live there and they don't like to go out at night, because you never know what kind of craziness you'll find.

One more thing to consider is that families of the men who are serving their country often suffer when they are away. In the schools that are on base and around it, children with parents overseas have more problems with anger, impulsiveness, and outright criminal behavior sometimes. It all goes back to not having both parents around to raise their kids properly. I'm dealing with children right now who have had their fathers or mothers deployed for at least half of their lives and when their parents get home, they aren't the same people, or are really suffering from the experience of combat.

It makes me angry to think that all of this could be avoided, but we collectively don't have the will to stop it...yet.

 

[Makalakumu]

Ultimately, none of this is defensible anymore. Supporters can trundle out the same tired old slogans and even the people who aren't paying attention can see that we're wasting our time. We need to get out of these wars before more families get hurt, before more people lose their minds, before we break our country's financial back on this ridiculous imperial adventure.

 

[Big Don]

Ultimately, none of this is defensible anymore. Supporters can trundle out the same tired old slogans and even the people who aren't paying attention can see that we're wasting our time. We need to get out of these wars before more families get hurt, before more people lose their minds, before we break our country's financial back on this ridiculous imperial adventure.

Wow, so much for :

No one is "blaming" service people for anything.

Your last post is so full of douchebaggery, I'm stunned.

 

[Makalakumu]

Wow, so much for :
Your last post is so full of douchebaggery, I'm stunned.

Why is saying that we need to stop this craziness douchebaggery? If I believe that none of this is worth it and all of these sacrifices are incredible wastes of human energy and resources, that's a valid opinion. The US had 1.5 million new cases of cancer in 2011. There were over 500,000 deaths. That's a real concern. THAT is something that might be worth spending trillions of dollars to solve.

166 9/11s happen each year from just this one issue. It's a misallocation of resources and morally wrong.

 

[Makalakumu]

Here's how worried our own government is when it comes to "random violence" from soldiers in Afghanistan.

Soldiers disarm during Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's speech.

[h=2]US soldiers were asked to disarm during a speech by Leon Panetta, the American defence secretary, in a sign of grown concern over spates of seemingly random violence in Afghanistan. [/h]

 

[Sukerkin]

Why is saying that we need to stop this craziness douchebaggery?

Quite simply, it isn't.

However, you are batting uphill on a subject like this as far too many people are acceptingly uncritical of their countries foreign policy when it involves military action. It is quite possible to oppose a policy without opposing the poor sods who get stuck with carrying it out but some find it difficult to separate the two because patriotic emotion makes it seem that the two need to be glued together.

It's like the fallacy that winds up with the emotional response that guns are inherently dangerous, when, of course, it is those that wield them improperly that are dangerous. If someone murders someone else, it is not the gun that is at fault.

 

[Big Don]

It isn't that I am acceptingly uncritical, it's just that seeing the same "ZOMG! AMERICAN IMPERIALISM" BS in every fifth post by someone gets douchetastic.

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye, I can understand the reaction, Don, fear not on that. The cumulative effect of repetition of a theme that you don't agree with can get very irksome in a pure text environment :nods:.

 

[Makalakumu]

Quite simply, it isn't.

However, you are batting uphill on a subject like this as far too many people are acceptingly uncritical of their countries foreign policy when it involves military action. It is quite possible to oppose a policy without opposing the poor sods who get stuck with carrying it out but some find it difficult to separate the two because patriotic emotion makes it seem that the two need to be glued together.

It's like the fallacy that winds up with the emotional response that guns are inherently dangerous, when, of course, it is those that wield them improperly that are dangerous. If someone murders someone else, it is not the gun that is at fault.

Each person who decides to serve is still a person in my eyes, Sukerkin. I respect the idea that you want to sign up and protect your people, but I think we need to rethink the idea that this is what is actually happening in the wars we are fighting now. In fact, it takes about two questions to break down the argument. Therefore, if every man is responsible for the decisions they make, and we're not there to deal with an immediate threat to our people, the people in uniform are caught in a nasty moral dilemma.

There is no good justification to kill these people and fight here at all.

Think about it like this. I read an article a while back that really moved me. I wish I could find it. It was about the night raids that are going on in Afghanistan. It started with the story of a good Pashtun man, a man who was respected by his neighbors and family, and ended with describing how he was killed and how his family was hauled off to Bagram where they were interrogated and tortured. The story goes like this, one day the man went to the market and complained a little too loudly about the foreigners occupying his country. Someone heard the complaint and passed it on to the Americans, who put the man on watch list. Somehow, he ended up on a list and a team of soldiers were sent to bring him in for questioning. The rest of the story gave me chills, because I could really connect with this young man.

You are fast asleep and then you hear someone kick your door in, there is some shouting in the rooms in front of the house. Like any man would, you decide to protect your family and grab your kalishnikov to go and deal with the threat, but you are no match for this team. As soon as they see you with a weapon, you're dead. They don't miss. Your eldest son comes to see what is happening. Boom dead. The rest of the family are gathered up, ziptied, bag over the head, and hauled off. Since the man was armed, the whole situation changes. This man could be part of the resistance and the rest of them might have intelligence on others. They are taken to the prison, undergo "enhanced interrogation" and languish in a dark hole for weeks. Eventually, someone realizes that these people don't know anything and this man was simply trying to protect his family and they are let go. There might be more to this story, but I have no way of finding any of it out. If you look at organizations that track civilian casualties, this story is quite common. In fact, the culture, this would be expected.

Check this article

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11...led-over-1500-afghan-civilians-in-ten-months/

In Afghanistan, every adult Pashtun male has a weapon in his home, and is obliged by the ancient code of conduct called “Pashtunwali” to defend his home, his family and his friends against armed intruders. In a typical extended family compound, several males have weapons.
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As a result, the non-targeted civilians killed in night raids have invariably been either close relatives or neighbors who have come out to assist against an armed assault.

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The bottom line is that these men are trying to stop invaders from harming their families just like any other god damn red blooded man would do in the same situation. If these invaders did the same thing in the middle of Texas, you'd see the same god damn thing! There are bad guys here and it ain't the Pashtuns who are trying to protect their women and children from harm. The people who made an oath to protect their women and children and country from harm are murdering men who are doing the same damn thing...but it's real for them and not some propaganda that's easily dismissed with an ounce of reason.

Do I care about the soldiers who are sent to do this dirty work? Sure, but I also hold them responsible. In my eyes, you don't get to be a hero for being an invader and doing what is described above. The people who I really respect are the ones who realize that this is all ******** and find some way to stop doing it. The men and women who realize that you can't serve evil and call yourself good are the people whom I highly regard.

It's a matter of integrity for me. I can't care for someone, I can't love someone, without holding them as responsible and capable people. And I know that I know that I know that if more people in the world did this, we'd have a lot less of this madness in it.

 

[Tez3]

If only it was as simple as you make out. That good Pashtun was more than likely a supporter of the Taliban, kept them in power, kept the tortureers, the child killers, the wwomen beaters in power. Suicide bombers kill more Afghans than the Allies do. It's not a simple case of oh we are the baddies for invading these nice simple peace loving people, if only it were, we could get the hell out of there and leave them to it all. Like a lot of other people you haven't taken the time to actually look and see what life in like there. these are people who blackmail children into becoming suicide bombers, who aren't defending their country as are part of a civil war there.
When the Allies do something wrong we aren't defending them, if soldiers do something wrong we aren't defending them either but you need to actually look into what is going on rather than see this in such a simplistic light.

 

[Makalakumu]

How would you react if a group of powerful invaders decided to force you to live a certain way?

We need to think outside the box of force in order to solve social problems. It never works.

And maybe that Pashtun didn't do a damn thing but complain to the wrong people and grab his gun when other people broke into his house. You don't know and neither do I. Regardless this man is no threat to me, so there was no reason to for one of our soldiers to kill him.

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[Makalakumu]

And your comment on torture takes on a differnt light when you consider "enhanced interrogations". That's torture too.

So, what is the difference between our torture and theirs? Both sides claim the side of righteousness and both produce evil results.

The common factor is one group forcing another to live a certain way against their will.

You can't use Sauron's ring without turning into him.

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[Tez3]

How would you react if a group of powerful invaders decided to force you to live a certain way?

We need to think outside the box of force in order to solve social problems. It never works.

And maybe that Pashtun didn't do a damn thing but complain to the wrong people and grab his gun when other people broke into his house. You don't know and neither do I. Regardless this man is no threat to me, so there was no reason to for one of our soldiers to kill him.

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How would you feel if a group of your own people made you live the way they wanted you to? How would you feel if your entire gender was treated worse than slaves? that families were being killed because of their religious beliefs? that children were tortured, women stoned to death for being raped etc etc etc? This Pashtun, this very innocent man of whom we have no proof by the way that he even existed probably grew poppies for opium so that american children could get hooked on drugs so no threat there to you and yours, he probably supported Al Queda so again no threat there to you and probably beat his wife regularly who was probably a child bride bought from her family but hey it's all about how you feel, not the people who are glad that the Allies are in their country of which there are a great many more than you would imagine, not just the women either but the intellectuals, the doctors, the teachers and those who just want peace. Not all the Afghans are looking at the Allies as invaders, a great many see them as liberators. I don't think we should be there and I hope we get out as soon as we can but you can't get away from the fact that we are there and a lot of Afghans are actually grateful. the picture you paint of a bucolic idyll torn to pieces by the Allies invasion just isn't the truth.

Should we have gone in? Absolutely not but we have and it's surprising how much good it's done, if you think the country is in a state now you really really should have seen it before. Read up on the Taliban, the war lords, Al Queda and the treatment of the Afghan people that was so much like that of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Afghan had it's killing fields, it's savage killing of the intellectuals and those who dare to disagree, speak to the refugees of the Taliban, we have a lot here and they support the Allies totally.

 

[Makalakumu]

the picture you paint of a bucolic idyll torn to pieces by the Allies invasion just isn't the truth.

Of course it's not the truth and neither is it the picture "I've" painted. It's a strawman. The violence, the drugs, the extremism, it's all a result of previous intervention. At some point good people need to step away and let the situation sort its own way out. I can't even imagine what the unintended consequences are going to be from this latest intervention...

 

[Tez3]

Of course it's not the truth and neither is it the picture "I've" painted. It's a strawman. The violence, the drugs, the extremism, it's all a result of previous intervention. At some point good people need to step away and let the situation sort its own way out. I can't even imagine what the unintended consequences are going to be from this latest intervention...

You really think that everything that has happened in Afghan is nothing at all to do with any Afghani? That the Taliban are nothing to do with them and is the fault of who exactly? Wow.

I don't think it's possible to discuss objectively something like this with someone who doesn't see things in anything others than how he wants them to be. This is the equivelant of saying the people in prison are only there because they all had bad childhoods and are just misunderstood. It's a very skewed logic and it's a fatal one.

The violence has always been there, it's a violent part of the world always has been, the tribes are warlike very far from peaceful. Poppy growing for opium has been an Afghan crop for centuries, all that's changed is the market being no longer China. You need to look at Afghanistans history a bit more closely before blaming it on 'foreign intervention'.

 

[Makalakumu]

You need to look at Afghanistans history a bit more closely before blaming it on 'foreign intervention'.

:hb:

Afghanistan, before the Soviets invaded, was a far more peaceful and organized place. It wasn't perfect, but at least it resembled many other 3rd world countries. When the Soviets invaded, the decision was made to arm a sect of extremists because they were willing to fight and die for what they believed. The war was long and ground on for many years. In the meantime, the Soviets set up an unbelievably corrupt government. The people who lived there could find no justice, could hold no property for long, and had no way of settling disputes. The only other group capable of providing any order at all was the Mujahedin. They had money and weapons from the West and they were fighting to kick the invaders out, so a lot of average men joined them for completely pragmatic reasons.

After the Soviets withdrew, the Taliban didn't immediately take power. The old tribal government system that existed before, attempted to reassert itself and attempted to rebuild the society. Women and girls could go to school and families lived pretty much with the same values they had for thousands of years. It's not perfect, according to Western standards, for example Pashtun men regularly buy little boys for sex slaves, but it was hell on Earth either. It was at this time that a friend of mine made a trip around the world and walked from Africa to China. He passed through Afghanistan and related to me that every family was warm and accepting of him. They gave him food and helped him with directions. No one tried to kill him, like they did in Africa. Afghanis had schools, clean water, and many modern amenities that came from the West or were left over from Soviet occupation.

In the West, a decision was made to keep using their assets and set Afghanistan up as a bulwark against the Soviets and the Chinese. More money and weapons flowed from the CIA to the Taliban and the fighting began again. Eventually, the Taliban took over the country and instituted a weird form of Sharia law. They closed down all of the schools, they forced all of the women into Burkas, they began to disappear intellectuals and anyone else who stood in their way. Eventually, they controlled the whole country except for a small part in the North. The Taliban enforced their interpretation of Sharia with fear and death and backed their rule with Western weapons and money. About the only good thing they did was eradicate the production of poppies. Opium production fell 96% under their rule.

In the mid to late 90s, oil and gas was discovered in the Caspian Basin and Western governments wanted to get it out of there and onto the market as fast as possible. Taking the oil out through the Persian Gulf wasn't a possibility because Iran was in the way. A decision was made to take it through the South, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and soon negotiations began. Unocal employees entered into direct negotiations with the Taliban. Hamid Karzai, the current president of Afghanistan, was one of their spokesmen. The Taliban were incredibly hard to deal with. It was discovered that they hated the West as much as they hated the Soviets! Talks broke down and had to be restarted. Multinational corporations started losing money on the initial investments. The US government got involved and began negotiating with the CIA. Our government threatened to cut off our aid in weapons and money if they didn't comply. The Taliban dithered and pretended to comply just to keep the goodies flowing.

In the summer of 2001, talks broke down and aid was cut off. The Taliban was given an ultimatum, "accept our carpet of gold or receive our carpet of bombs." They flipped the finger to the West and ran all of it's officials out of the country. In August of 2001, an envoy told the Indian government that, "we would have troops on the ground before the snow flies." When September 11th happened and Bin Laden was implicated, the Taliban took him into custody. Washington demanded that he be turned over immediately and the Taliban were ready to comply. They asked for one thing, they wanted to see the evidence of his guilt first, because they didn't trust the West. The West sent bombs instead and the rest is history.

Getting him was never the West's intentions, though. We went in to settle the Taliban, just like we went into Iraq to settle Saddam. The West's assets needed disciplining and there was a larger vision behind it as well. 9/11 became a pretext to set in motion a plan that was started in the early 90s by a think tank known as the Project for the New American Century. All of the major officials in the Bush Administration, all neoconservative, helped to create this thing. In the 90's they sent a letter to President Clinton, urging him to action, but the President wasn't going to support this vision of a unipolar world that spread American hegemony. The neoconservatives knew their plan was unpopular and even wrote, "this plan has little chance of implementation, barring a new Pearl Harbor event."

Most people know nothing about the history of our intervention in Afghanistan. This war really was not needed and the Taliban didn't just seize power on their own. Most people who support the war see it from an ignorant black and white propagandized perspective. They don't know that we pretty much put the Taliban in power. They don't know that fossil fuels was the straw that broke the camels back and tried our patience to the limits. They don't know that the Taliban actually had Bin Laden in custody and were ready to give him up. The real history is important for the people of the West to understand as we contemplate our future in that region.

 

[Tez3]

What history book were you reading? Afghanistan was a peaceful and organised place? Really, I suppose thats why they bumped off their leaders with monotonous regularity then. There was a civil war going on before the USSR invaded it! The USA didn't arm a bunch of extremists, they armed a bunch of loosely tied together Afghan tribes some of who were Muslim fundamentalist some not. The civil war that was raging at the time of the Soviet invasion was between the fundamentalists and the secularists. You make sweeping statements like that of your friend who 'states that Africans' tried to kill him, well which Africans? the Afghans like other Muslims have a code of hospitality and just because they kept to that with your friend doesn't make them all nice innocent people. You make others statement as well without backing them up.I admire your passion for wanting to do the right thing but you look at everything in such a one dimensional way, refusing to see the complicated patterns that go on it countries like Afghanistan. You don't take into account the tribal system and seem to think it was a plasant place before the Allies came simply because your friend was there. I think you'll find that people know far more about Afghanistan than you so patronisingly think. You seem to have a very low opinion of your countrymen's intelligence? Here if you ask the man in the street about Afghan you may be surprised how much he knows but then it's our fourth war there, Pakistan is part of the Commonwealth and we have a lot of Afghan refugees here. Our news services, newspapers and the general interest in the world means we do have more than an inkling of what goes on outside our borders.I won't speak for Americans, but I will say that you should stop assuming the Brits don't know what's going on in the world and that we don't understand what is happening. It's rather tiresome you assuming everyone but you is ignorant.

 

[Makalakumu]

What history book were you reading? Afghanistan was a peaceful and organised place? Really, I suppose thats why they bumped off their leaders with monotonous regularity then. There was a civil war going on before the USSR invaded it! The USA didn't arm a bunch of extremists, they armed a bunch of loosely tied together Afghan tribes some of who were Muslim fundamentalist some not. The civil war that was raging at the time of the Soviet invasion was between the fundamentalists and the secularists. You make sweeping statements like that of your friend who 'states that Africans' tried to kill him, well which Africans? the Afghans like other Muslims have a code of hospitality and just because they kept to that with your friend doesn't make them all nice innocent people. You make others statement as well without backing them up.I admire your passion for wanting to do the right thing but you look at everything in such a one dimensional way, refusing to see the complicated patterns that go on it countries like Afghanistan. You don't take into account the tribal system and seem to think it was a plasant place before the Allies came simply because your friend was there. I think you'll find that people know far more about Afghanistan than you so patronisingly think. You seem to have a very low opinion of your countrymen's intelligence? Here if you ask the man in the street about Afghan you may be surprised how much he knows but then it's our fourth war there, Pakistan is part of the Commonwealth and we have a lot of Afghan refugees here. Our news services, newspapers and the general interest in the world means we do have more than an inkling of what goes on outside our borders.I won't speak for Americans, but I will say that you should stop assuming the Brits don't know what's going on in the world and that we don't understand what is happening. It's rather tiresome you assuming everyone but you is ignorant.

In my immediate circle of friends, I have people who have been to Afghanistan as civilians and as servicemen. My opinion isn't uninformed. In my previous post, I said that Afghanistan wasn't perfect before the Soviets invaded, but it was far more organized and peaceful then people think. I've met people who have immigrated from there in the mid-70s and listened. Kabul was known as the Paris of central Asia in the 60s and 70s. They had an Olympic Training Center and I remember reading an article about their boxing program and about how the man tried to keep it going through all of the troubles that followed. I wish I had time to find it online, because it was really touching. My point is that Afghanistan used to send athletes to the Olympics! This doesn't sound like the hell hole you make it out as. Sure, there were problems, but it's not anywhere near what exists now.

From what you've written, Tez3, I can see that you have a genuine concern for the people there. I think the way that the Taliban treat their women is abhorrent, but I'm also cognizant of the fact that the propaganda matrix to justify various interventions all around the world is changing. Look at the new Kony2012 movement, look at the humanitarian removal of Gaddafi, we're being urged to fight peace wars now for humanitarian reasons. I think this concern to women and children by governments is being thrown in our faces in order to justify our presence and entrance in all kinds of different countries.

That's why I think the best thing we can do for ourselves and for the people over there is to leave. We live in a confusing world where the average person just doesn't have time to sift through the matrix of messages and intents. I barely have enough time to just scratch the surface and from what I see, I know that we need to get out and get back to minding our own business. When the money and weapons that we gave the bad guys eventually disappear, Afghanistan will prosper again. As long as we keep putting in corrupt governments and messing with the place for their own good, we're just going to screw it up further.

I've spoken to enough of my military neighbors to know that there are some good things being done there by the invaders. It isn't totally black and white when you get up close and personal, but when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, it's gets darker and darker. It's kind of like one of those pictures made up of other pictures and when you zoom out, you see something totally different. So, maybe people like you and I can agree to disagree on certain things, but agree that we need to get out as soon as possible. And then do our best not let these kinds of things happen again.

 

[Tez3]

Well I have the advantage of you I guess, I've been there and am going again in a while. I don't rely on friend's opinions, I speak to the Afghans.

No has said we should be staying there, no one thinks war is good. Not all the Afghans want us gone, many want us to stay at least until the country is stabilised more than it is now. I've been trying to tell you things aren't simple there, it's a complicated subject. Hell is subjective, North Korea sends teams to the Olympics, the Nazis held the Olympics, it isn't the mark of a civilised country I'm afraid. If you've ever been to Paris with it's race riots, crime and poverty you'll know that being called the Paris of anywhere isn't really a compliment.

Support from the Soviets bought a lot of advances to Afghanistan, women were able to not wear the veil for example and education advanced so much of the peace you ascribe to the Afghans came with support from the Communists. civil war broke out when the radical Muslims rebelled giving the Soviets a reason to invade. Russias involvement in Afghan has been going on as long as Britain's way back in the 18th and 19th centuries. The whole area has always been and still is one of the most volatile in the world.
http://www.afghan-web.com/history/chron/index3.html
http://www.afghan-web.com/history/chron/index4.html

This is hardly the history of a peaceful and organised country.