Kill 24 people, Get three months in Jail. God Bless America.

[Clive Howlitzer]

Whenever I hear about this stuff, its always "marines" who do it. Just like every ex-marine I know is a huge psycho or a douchebag. I wonder if there is a connection here.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Sounds awfully familiar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
This kind of thing has happened before.
A pissed-off battalion for some reason murdered an entire village.
Afterwards the only person sentenced to anything was a Platoon leader with 3.5 years of house arrest.

As stupid as it is, it's not because of individual evil. Their command was to "kill the enemy". That was it. They were supposed to find and kill Vietcong, and that is it. The Vietcong could be anyone, and that was enough justification for this murder.
We train people to commit atrocities. We give them guns and tanks, tell them to kill the enemy, and expect them to be perfectly fine and normal people afterwards. This insane idea that war is not detrimental to people, whether they survive or not is why this happens.
Long story short, this happens because it's what we train them to do.

 

[TorqueConverter]

Not saying that the killing was justified here, but technically that killing was done outside of America so the national law doesn't really follow him. Though I'm not really sure since even if you are in another country, doing something your not supposed to do can still get you in trouble if your part of an army. I'm ignorant about the rules in the military though.

Just sayin. It might not be moral, but it might be lawful. It's not always so easy is it.

Edit: One other thing. I'm kind of offended you decided to make it all about America. Maybe, I shouldn't be upset but I'm think this kind of thing would happen with any country at war. If it was English, Australian, or Etc soldiers you probably would not have drawn attention to it. Even though you are entitled to your opinion (Like I am to mine).

I'd like to know the story myself. The code of conduct prohibits killing civilians and combatants that are clearly not a threat at time you contemplate using lethal fore. If a guys shoots at me, drops the weapon and just stands there, I don't kill him. It does not matter what the combatant has done, but what he or she is doing. In other words, they must be a clear threat at the time you choose to use lethal fore.

The law is cut and dry but the combat is not. I've done two tours over there and things can get really confusing, really quick. I don't care what you are told to do by whomever outranks you, a soldier knows right from wrong. They train the shit out of you in the Army on when and how to use escalation of force and lethal force. I don't know about the Marines but no soldier over there can play dumb about the code of conduct. At the end of the day you are ultimately held accountable for your actions. You screw up, you go to prison for long time.

If these guys were in the wrong then I, as a veteran, will be appalled by this slap on the wrist punishment.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Are people actually still surprised at this? The US has a terrible track record when it comes to killing civilians. They're obviously not alone to have that dubious honour but murdering civilians as revenge has been a pretty major element in pretty much every American war I can remember reading about.

Killing civilians has always been an element to warfare, but we're supposed to have moved beyond that now. And honestly murdering women, children and old men, to say nothing of the countless rapes isn't exactly how I would want my country represented on the world stage.

 

[Zeriah]

The people here trying to justify this makes me physically ill and ashamed to be apart of this website. This guy should be put in prison for life with no chance of parole in an Afghan prison, since that is where he committed this crime.

 

[SilentCom]

Edit: War has no rules? The Geneva Convention begs to differ, mate.

And what backs the Geneva convention? A collection of the largest military's on the planet.
Aside from that, the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions and simply a set of "gentleman's rules" to war. The only true enforcement possible of them is war.

Kind of like how militaries back in the 18th century followed rank and file, Napoleonic tactics and found it dishonorable to shoot at officers. This certainly changed.

 

[SilentCom]

I used to bash on America, but then I took an understanding of how people from everywhere have done bad stuff to the head.

 

[ecoho]

I'm sure the Catholic Church could learn a thing or two about harboring criminals from the Marines.

Hey, we have our problems, we're not perfect. This guy's personal life is completely ruined, he probably won't be able to find a job once discharged and he'll be shunned where ever he goes for the rest of his life.

Yes, because we totally just wanted to ruin a single guy's life instead of making it clear that we do punish this kind of crime. So while he has his 'ruined' life, 24 people are dead. I doubt people will always remember it anyway. He'd probably go somewhere where he isn't known.

If this was unintentional(and you will never convince me it wasnt) then this is tragic but you know what? theyre dead that isnt changeing so instead of wasteing time and money ruining a guys life for one mistake we should learn from it and make sure it doesnt happen again.

If you go through history every country that has been in war has had incidents like this(hell the french knowingly killed civilans so they could kill high ranking nazi officers) they are terrible and should be avoided but you know what? accidents happen and in a warzone when accidents happen people die. now they should discharge these two but a trial is too much, just discharge them or base them at home till their contacts run out.

 

[Darth_Dude]

]Fuck You America

As you say with an american soldier as an avatar.
sorry, just thought it was a bit ironic

Thats actually Erwin Rommel, a WW2 German General :3

 

[Darth_Dude]

There must be more to it than this.

There must have been a decent argument, something to cast doubt on the events.

They must have decided the marines made a terrible mistake. Something to be punished for yes, but not the same as intentional murder.

Okay...reading up, well it says that a bomb had just gone off and somebody was shooting at them and they didnt know where from. Im not going to judge these guys. They could have paniced from the and we will never know all the facts. Its not easy to make the right choice every time in a combat situation.

But how can you justify ""Six people were killed in one house, most shot in the head, including women and children huddled in a bedroom.""

Dunno, wasnt there. Maybe they were sweeping rooms so fast they didnt take the time to check their targets? Not that I know what its like to be a soldier.

But I do find it hard to believe only one guy would get three months if there was some evidence these guys actually intentionally commited murder.

They could have been pumped up on adrenaline and disorientated by the explosion that just went off.

You say they could have been sweeping rooms so fast they didnt get time to check their targets, but did you even read what I quoted?

"Six people were killed in one house, most shot in the head, including women and children huddled in a bedroom."

That doesnt sound like panic firing, or not checking targets properly to me.

 

[Darth_Dude]

Honestly? You weren't until now. You sounded justifiably upset, though I say that without looking at the evidence for myself. Unfortunately, "Fuck You America" will do a lot to damage your credibility as a neutral source of information.

I just want to point out that I am in no way at all a neutral source of information, nor do I claim to be. I thought my feelings on this issue and American foreign policy in general were made clear in my posts.

I trust my news links to be the neutral sources of Information.

 

[Zhukov]

Oh, I just fucking love how people try to justify this. Did you folks even read the bloody article? They went house-to-house killing men, women and kids. Then they tried to cover it up.

"Oh hey, we don't know what it's like!"

They killed kids.

"War is hell, get over it!"

They killed kids.

"Hey, it's stressful out there!"

They fucking killed kids.

You people fucking sicken me. I lack the eloquence to express the degree of sheer contempt with which I regard you. I feel ashamed to belong to the same damn species and relieved I don't have to endure the shame of sharing a homeland or nationality with you.

Support the troops everybody!

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

Disgusting, under any circumstances! The killing of civilians, particularly children, is abhorrent not matter what the logic. In this case there is none. War truly brings out the worst in people.

Also what a failure of justice! Shame on those who did the deed, and those who let them off without any real justice! Being a soldier is a difficult job granted, but one still needs to have morals and ethics; it is not a free-for-all!

 

[AlexWinter]

Yes yes, fuck America and death to the infadels and all that.

Wow, you people act as if no other countries commit attrocities during war. I'm not saying that's a justification or anything, but seriously, war is hell. Lots of people do things they regret, and I guarantee this isn't even the worst incident. But until you're in the situation that those soldiers were in, I don't think you can sit behind your computer and judge their actions. I bet at least some people here would have done the same thing in the same situation.

Yeah untrained civilians probably would have shot a few people.

I doubt they would have shot women and children. But maybe 24 men. If they were all close together.

This is the same point I was making last night. It's not alright for trained police and military to act this way just because they panicked.

They should be trained to deal with panic. America is putting lives in the hands of people straight out of high school and only teaching how to end them.

 

[CCountZero]

Compare the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings to 9/11...

While the use of nukes is regrettable, you need to factor in a couple of things.

First of all, the alternative would have been a ground assault, which coupled with the "For the Emperor!" attitude of the time would have resulted in far more deaths for the Japanese alone, even before you add the American ones.

It also served the purpose of sending a message to the Russians; 'thus prompting the beginning of the cold war and MAD, and it could easily be argued that this prevented further fighting.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm generally not much for the way America works at all, but that comparison is complete bullshit.

 

[Zeckt]

There is no excuse for killing a child who barely had a chance to live, especially one huddled by a bed. EVER. I feel disgust and pity for anyone who sympathizes with these troops, as they probably created a hundred or perhaps a thousand more freedom fighters WOOPS I MEANT TERRORIST! not freedom fighter at all!

Get the hell out that country already! all the soldiers are doing is promoting hate which will equal MORE FIGHTING!

 

[iRevanchist]

]Fuck You America

As you say with an american soldier as an avatar.
sorry, just thought it was a bit ironic

Thats actually Erwin Rommel, a WW2 German General :3

As in the nazi army? I agree that what america did with this situation was horrible, but nazis are far worse.