US soldier jailed for seven years over murders of Afghan civilians

7 years doesn't seem like much until you take into account his rank. Privates aren't in a position to disobey orders, even illegal ones. The ones to get life or death would be any hard striped ranks.

 

The guy will be dishonorably discharged after he serves his sentence anyway. A dishonorable discharge is worse than having a felony on your record. He'll be lucky to flip burgers at the drive-thru for the rest of his life after he gets out. Stupid kid ruined his life and the lives of others for sport.

 

Oh yeah your right, I just watched a stunning documentary on Netflix (cant remember the name off the top of my head) which interviewed many people who have been back from iraq, some physically injured and some not. But all the interviewees seemed to complain about mental injury, not only from military indoctrination and the coming back to civilian life (I dont sympathize with these complaints, its a given for military duty), but because of the lack of reason or mission for them being in the war itself.

They all said that the key reason for Iraq was 9/11, told to them by their superiors. But we all know that it only took weeks to topple Saddam, and we are still their, mostly fighting the indigenous people who want the US out of their country. They claimed that while the media and government tells US Citizens that these people are insurgents and terrorists, that in reality they are normal citizens who, most likely would not be committing attacks on their own people.

One thing I find interesting that relates to this topic is that, if it is true that the "insurgents" are merely civilians taking up arms against a foreign occupation, then how can soldiers completely distinguish the moral difference from killing an innocent civilian and a "civilian combatant?" Maybe after fighting enough "civilian combatants," they start to all turn into the same thing in a soldiers mind? Get what im saying?

 

I get what you're saying, but you have to peer further into the Soldier's Mind and the kind of training that he or she has received. If the civilian has a weapon and turns it against you, then that civilian is the enemy. Generally, our soldiers are trained not to fire unless they are fired upon. But I understand that a lot of these soldiers that aren't even old enough to drink yet can get a little trigger happy.

That being said, this guy that got seven years wasn't just trigger happy. This was cold-blooded murder. Our soldiers are not trained to murder, they are trained to kill the enemy.

 

Yeah for sure, I definitely dont think even some of our soldiers would commit such acts voluntarily, I think most of the time it is accidental when civilians are killed weather its from gun fire or from bombings. I just know there are some soldiers out there speaking out that there is more of this trigger happiness than there is being reported or criminally perused. Some even say there is peer pressure within the military to commit at least mistreatment of civilians in Iraq, cant say for sure myself, I have never been there. But I think this may be the result of using the military as a police force in Iraq, what do you think?

 

Hmm ... perhaps. Tell us, how many US Marines were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for killing unarmed men, women, and children, in Haditha, and then lying about the causes of death? None, I think is the correct answer.

How many US soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, were convicted of the massacre of nearly 500 mainly women and children on March 16, 1968, at My Lai? That's right, only one - William Calley - and he served all of three and a half years in the comfort of house arrest.

So tell us again how outstanding the US is in prosecuting its own agents for wrongdoing.

 

I think cases like these should be prevented at the recruitment stage. They should be, but often times they aren't. Recruiters are all about making their quotas, and that comes from their superiors. I've heard of recruiters doing some pathetic crap just to make sure that they get their guy or gal enlisted. The Army recruits felons, for example; in that case the recruit has to get a morality waiver from an officer, which generally consists of the officer interrogating them to judge their moral character. If it were up to me, no felons would be allowed into the military. The recruiters themselves never lie to you; they just don't tell you the whole truth.

 

Are you suggesting he might have received orders from his superior officers to kill children for sport, and keep their bones as souvenirs?

 

Economically speaking, the death of this third-world child isn't worth the loss of revenue from the soldier, and the cost of jailing him for any extended period of time beyond a week is a waste of tax payer money. Just give him a dishonorable discharge.

 

Congratulations! You have plumbed new depths. That has to be the most disgusting post it has been my misfortune to read on this board.

 

Not a superior officer. Look at who else was involved. A staff sergeant in the U.S. Army is not an officer. He is a non-commissioned officer or NCO for short.

There's an old Army joke that goes like this: The smart ones join the Navy and Air Force. The crazy ones join the Marines. The Army gets the rest.

 

Morally speaking, it's a heinous act, (if you accept the fact that human lives are equal - which nationalism must inherently reject) and the soldier should serve life in prison without parole since it's our obligation to protect human dignity and rights/so on.