US army murder footage released

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Marc 1
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Marc 1 » Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:32 am

NATO, the US and us
One and the same, no?
Per
yes and no - you are correct that NATO does include the US so that was superfluous, but we (Australia) are not part of NATO (hence the lower case 'us').

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Marc 1 » Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:51 am

American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar on Monday morning, killing and wounding civilians, and igniting angry anti-American demonstrations in a city where winning over Afghan support is pivotal to the war effort.
The American-led military command in Kabul called the killings a “tragic loss of life” and said that troops fired in the early morning light not knowing that the vehicle was a passenger bus and believing that it posed a threat to a military convoy clearing bombs from a highway.

But there were disputes over details including the number of dead, the relative positions of the convoys, and how the troops could not have understood that the vehicle was a passenger bus.

It was also unclear whether the troops had first shot flares and warned the driver to stay back, as military rules typically require. NATO said they did.

The governor of Kandahar Province, Tooryalai Wesa, called for the commander of the military convoy that opened fire to be prosecuted under military law.

“If you want to stop the bus, it should be shot in the tires,” Mr. Wesa said. “Why shoot the people inside?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/world ... lobal-home


Shit happens in a war right? The same shit, again and again and again....
This sort of situation is just the sort of situation that a young Platoon Commander dreads - there is a bus coming toward your detatchment - you signal for it to slow or stop to maintain a safe buffer as per the regulations. The vehicle keeps coming, now the 20-25 year old Lt straight out of office training will be required to give the order to open fire on the bus to stop it getting closer. Or he can tell his troops to hold their fire but risk that the innocents on board the bus (can he see them? Its winter, the windows are closed due to the cold, and dust obscures the windows and the view) may not be innocents - in which case he may be killed or his men (that he will carry one of the dog tags from if killed - the men he is responsible for) will die. If it is a bomb and he survives, what's left of him will face a board of enquiry and the angry families of the Next of Kin back in his home country about why he did not follow his Rules of Engagement - essentially committing the cardinal military sin of Disobeydiance of a Lawful Command - The RoE being a lawful command. Or he gives the order to open fire and finds his order has caused the death of 4 and injuries (in a country with no welfare system) to 12 others.

It's a no win situation for the poor bastard and his soldiers who pulled the trigger - all because the driver either wasn't watching or thought the NATO troops were bluffing and he could still get his busload to the destination and make it home for dinner. I knew the company commander of some Aussie soldiers in Iraq who shot up a car (family of 4) that wouldn't stop. He told me the psycological scars of the two blokes who fired were and are not pretty. Despite being cleared of blame by a board of inquiry, the soldiers who took the lives of innocents were badly affected. War is really a no win situation. We should not be there, because this is what the politicians don't appreciate - these kinds of psycological injuries are always going to be there in an insurgent type war like this. Very different from a traditional war where there is a 'right or good' side and an 'evil or bad' side, and usually a soldier is shooting other uniformed combatants (different for the airforce who bomb civillians - they don't come face to face with their 'mistakes' and the 'collateral damage' (fabulous euphemism that :roll: )
Last edited by Marc 1 on Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Ancient Mariner » Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:55 am



yes and no - you are correct that NATO does include the US so that was superfluous, but we (Australia) are not part of NATO (hence the lower case 'us').
Got you mixed up with our allied brethren across the pond. Terribly sorry, my apologies, want happen again.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Sickbag » Tue Apr 13, 2010 10:11 am


- all because the driver either wasn't watching or thought the NATO troops were bluffing and he could still get his busload to the destination and make it home for dinner.

Yep its the bus drivers fault what the f*** was he doing there? and the passengers, what do they expect when they enter a war zone?
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Ancient Mariner » Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:45 am


- all because the driver either wasn't watching or thought the NATO troops were bluffing and he could still get his busload to the destination and make it home for dinner.

Yep its the bus drivers fault what the f*** was he doing there? and the passengers, what do they expect when they enter a war zone?
Or as they frequently call it.....................home.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Verbal » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:12 pm

I'm kinda curious Sickbag, how would you have handled the situation faced by the NATO troops?
Sicky obviously can't answer that question. He lives in a world of black-and-white, populated by cardboard cut-outs who are either universally good or evil. There are no shades of gray in this binary universe.

Sicky's job is to manufacture outrage; it is not to suggest viable solutions to intractable problems.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Not_Karl » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:52 pm

Sicky obviously can't answer that question. He lives in a world of black-and-white, populated by cardboard cut-outs who are either universally good or evil. There are no shades of gray in this binary universe.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Sickbag » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:55 pm

I'm kinda curious Sickbag, how would you have handled the situation faced by the NATO troops?
Sicky obviously can't answer that question. He lives in a world of black-and-white, populated by cardboard cut-outs who are either universally good or evil. There are no shades of gray in this binary universe.

Sicky's job is to manufacture outrage; it is not to suggest viable solutions to intractable problems.

An Intractable problem? not really.

The troops were there because the Taliban had planted mines in the road, why had the Taliban planted mines in the road ? Because the troops were there.
The Taliban won't leave Afghanistan, they live there.What are the troops doing in Afghanistan? They are removing mines in the road planted by the Taliban.

Do you see were this is going?
Can anyone spot the obvious solution?
If not please feel free to correct spelling and grammar.
Thanks.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Digger » Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:16 am

Can anyone spot the obvious solution?
They need to stop being the Taliban and be nice people instead. Once everybody there is nice, the troops can leave. Pretty simple really...

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Marc 1 » Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:50 am

Do you see were this is going?
Can anyone spot the obvious solution?
Actually mate, I was rather hoping that you would have the obvious solution (clearly, not obvious to me) - hence asking what you would have done in that situation? After all to be full of criticism would imply that you know another way to do it that must have been better...

Hint for your answer: it cannot involve the past - I don't think Boeing (Verbal?) has the time machine sufficiently developed to sell it at an overinflated price to the Pentagon yet.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Marc 1 » Wed Apr 14, 2010 5:29 am


- all because the driver either wasn't watching or thought the NATO troops were bluffing and he could still get his busload to the destination and make it home for dinner.

Yep its the bus drivers fault what the f*** was he doing there? and the passengers, what do they expect when they enter a war zone?
Well Sickbag, you can manufacture all the moral outrage on the globe - if that's what the drivers attitude was: "This is my home - why should I have to stop?" Then he has just done Mythbusters a very large favour in testing the hypothesis that: Being Morally Correct Will Stop a 5.56mm High Velocity Full Jacketed Round.

The war has been going since 2001 or 2002 (troops on the ground). In a warzone, the ones with the power are the blokes with the guns - you ignore them at your peril. I'm fairly certain that in the past 8 or so years the driver would have been aware that the man with the gun is the one in charge (hell, logic tells me that much, and I've never been to the two way rifle range). Being a driver, there is a very good chance that he would have come across a NATO convoy before (or would have heard talk about what to do from other drivers), so even if he had missed the waved flashlight, three flares and hand signals to stop (presumably hand signals waved in some kind of light) he should have known that you don't try and pass without being waved through. The passengers and driver weren't entering a war zone, they live in a war zone - they would have know what the deal was.

More info:

Monday's shooting occurred as the bus was passing through the Zhari district of Kandahar province. The NATO statement said the incident began when a large vehicle approached a slow-moving NATO convoy from behind at "a high rate of speed." The convoy, sweeping the road for bombs, could not get out of the way of the oncoming vehicle because of a steep embankment, the statement said.

NATO said the troops in the convoy followed procedure, using a flashlight, three flares and hand signals to warn the vehicle to stop. When none of that worked, they opened fire. "Once engaged, the vehicle then stopped," the statement said. "Upon inspection, ISAF forces discovered the vehicle to be a passenger bus."

But Abdul Ghani, an Afghan man who told The Washington Post in a telephone interview that he was the driver of the bus, said the soldiers "didn't give me any kind of signal. . . . They just opened fire. No signal at all."

Ghani's account could not be independently confirmed, and other news organizations quoted a different person who said he was the driver.


This gives more reasons why the troops opened fire - they were in some form of steep terrain - the Taleban would choose precisely that type of terrain to ambush their enemies. The NATO vehicles were restricted in where they could go, and the heavy vehicle was approaching presumably at night (flares and torches used). So how do you identify at night possibly on a dirt road without street lighting that the vehicle approaching is a bus full of innocents or a truck filled with explosives?

Two accounts of what happened - depending on which side of the fence you are sitting on depends on who you believe - the bloke who reckons he was the driver (although another bloke also reckoned he was the driver), or the troops? There is bound to be a military inquiry conducted - either all of the soldiers that supposedly fabricated the story that they gave warning will have to have meticulously well co-ordinated stories (I've watched Military Police do investigations - they will normally trip somebody up if a group are lying), and hope that a UAV didn't have the area under surveillance to show that they were lying or they were telling the truth. The coin goes both ways there have been coalition troops convicted for deliberately shooting innocents in Iraq and Afg - and they get many years in the clink if can be proved that they were not following RoE's.

Look at it from another angle - in the past 2 years the coalition have been trying a kid gloves approach to handling the Afghan population (the hearts and minds campaign that should have properly started in 2001) - what would the troops have to gain by not giving a warning? Why brass up a vehicle without warning when you are trying to get the population on your side?

So, yes, either the driver chose to ignore the warnings, misinterpreted the warnings (unlikely - and even if he did commonsense says you don't approach a NATO convoy at high speed without being waved past), or did he just arrogantly place his and his passengers life in danger and decide he knew better that the men with the guns? Maybe he gambled that because NATO have been using kid gloves and taking a far more touchy feely approach that they wouldn't fire on his bus? Either way, I doubt he'll stick his hand up and admit responsibility - he'd be lynched by his passengers for being a knob.

Situation for you Sickbag: You are a bank teller, a bank robber enters the store, gun in hand and demands you hand over the money, and he doesn't even have a withdrawl slip signed! Do you tell him that what he is doing is morally wrong and that you will not hand over the money, or do you do as the police and security experts suggest and comply with the man with the gun? That's what this scenario boils down to - a bloke who belives he is right and that he doesn't have to obey the man with the gun

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Sickbag » Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:32 am

The answer of course is for troops not to be in Afghanistan , the continued presence of western troops there makes no sense what so ever and hasn't done for many many years now. Their presence is generating the resistance.Everyone in power and in the military knows this, that's why the US is going to cut a deal with parts of the Taliban or anyone it can find to talk to and get out anyway as soon as it can figure out a way to save face. I suspect one of the the main priority's is to try and achieve this before the next presidential elections in the US. I'm not that keen on wasting human lives troops or civilians because politicians and military leaders need to save face on one of the most serious military and political blunders they have created in the last twenty years. You can justify the reasons the troops opened fire in this or countless other incidents that occur in the country all you like the fact is thousands of civilians have been killed in Afghanistan and every time this happens it boosts the resistance to the presence of foreign troops in the country among the ordinary population.

Oh and here a 'scenario' for you; A man walks up to you and shoots you in the head.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby David Hilditch » Wed Apr 14, 2010 12:19 pm

I think in this discussion (the latter part of it anyway) that Sickbag has many valid points, especially the point that the Taleban are part of the Afghan political system - they can't be destroyed or eliminated totally. (And it's worth bearing in mind which parties facilitated their rise in the 1990s in the first place.) It's not a matter of whether or not the Taleban are nice guys or not, or can become nice guys. The point is that Afghanistan has a generalized endemic culture of corruption, and no effective strategy of countering this large scale corruption has yet been formulated. I know (and have seen) that occasionally there are some good things going on here and there in Afghanistan at a very local level, but overall we are being taken for suckers.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby OldSowBreath » Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:02 pm

Concur^. This is an unwinnable war (what would constitute a win anyway?), by any standard.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Verbal » Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:06 pm

I think NATO recognizes that the Taliban won't go away, so their efforts are now directed towards co-opting them into the mainstream. This at least is the direction Karzai seems to be moving.

Simply pulling troops out tomorrow would ensure:
1) The Taliban is free to reconstitute itself into whatever form it chooses.
2) The Taliban undermines the elected government (such as it is).
3) The Afghan government loses whatever centralized control it has left.
4) For good measure, the Taliban fire shells at Buddhist shrines and further oppress Afghan women.
5) The Taliban jump back in the sack with al Qaeda.
6) Under the protection of state sponsorship, al Qaeda start blowing up discos full of westerners.
7) Troops are sent into Afghanistan to hunt down the perpetrators.
8) Repeat as necessary.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Sickbag » Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm

I think NATO recognizes that the Taliban won't go away, so their efforts are now directed towards co-opting them into the mainstream. This at least is the direction Karzai seems to be moving.
Karzai recently stated that if the west continues to pressurize him he would join the Taliban.
Must be all part of the brilliant NATO strategy we have witnessed for the last seven years.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Sickbag » Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:59 pm

there are some good things going on here and there in Afghanistan at a very local level, but overall we are being taken for suckers.

I wonder how may of those 'good things' have been accomplished by NGOs and other non military bodies or how many of them could be achieved by such organisations given a demilitarisation of Afghanistan.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Verbal » Wed Apr 14, 2010 5:10 pm

Sadly, I think a demilitarization of Afghanistan would essentially leave you with Somalia.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby PurduePilot » Wed Apr 14, 2010 5:42 pm

Concur^. This is an unwinnable war (what would constitute a win anyway?), by any standard.
A declaration of such by the leadership, of course.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Sickbag » Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:43 pm

Simply pulling troops out tomorrow would ensure:
1) The Taliban is free to reconstitute itself into whatever form it chooses.
2) The Taliban undermines the elected government (such as it is).
3) The Afghan government loses whatever centralized control it has left.
4) For good measure, the Taliban fire shells at Buddhist shrines and further oppress Afghan women.
5) The Taliban jump back in the sack with al Qaeda.
6) Under the protection of state sponsorship, al Qaeda start blowing up discos full of westerners.
7) Troops are sent into Afghanistan to hunt down the perpetrators.
8) Repeat as necessary.
I think all these outcomes are likely whether we leave now or in 2 ,3, 10, 15 or 30 years time. apart from 7 of course assuming we can learn from our mistakes: after all the 911 attack was planned in Germany and carried out by Saudis.
I'm not sure Afghanistan will become like Sudan (Is Sudan not better off then Afghanistan anyway?) you've got countries like China and India queuing up to pump in investment & development in order to exploit the massive mineral wealth of the country.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby Verbal » Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:02 pm

I said Somalia, not Sudan. All those African "S" counties blend together after a while.
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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby David Hilditch » Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:39 pm

I think NATO recognizes that the Taliban won't go away, so their efforts are now directed towards co-opting them into the mainstream. This at least is the direction Karzai seems to be moving.
That may be true, but why do you think the Taleban won’t go away ? One reason is that the Afghan people see their country as occupied by foreign forces. I think Karzai is jumping on this horse. The Taleban, I think, are already part of the mainstream, but I assume you mean they might become more central to the administration and central government of the country at Karzai’s invitation (they already predominate in a number of cities and regions). Well, they might. But if this is the arrangement that Karzai wants, and the Taleban wants, why would we want to keep our forces in the country ? Remember : we’re in Afghanistan to save us from al-Qaeda, not because we actually care about Afghanistan. Aren't we ? I don’t think al-Qaeda are likely to re-enter Afghanistan, or in fact want to. They’re in Pakistan, which is more hospitable to them, plus in various branch offices in a dozen other countries.

In any event, Obama says that our forces will come out of Afghanistan in mid-2011, which is not much more than a year away. So that’s all right then.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby David Hilditch » Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:48 pm

I wonder how may of those 'good things' have been accomplished by NGOs and other non military bodies or how many of them could be achieved by such organisations given a demilitarisation of Afghanistan.
Yes, the ‘good things’ are mostly carried out by non-military organizations. While competition for limited resources is ever-present, another difficulty is that, with a few exceptions, you can’t put international personnel into much of Afghanistan without substantial military force and protection. You can’t really build up critical mass in expanding civil society projects because we don’t have enough forces and because of poor security, not to mention untrustworthy local law enforcement. That brings us up back to the endemic culture of corruption I talked about this morning. When you factor in an assumed overhead cost of military protection into the total cost of a small project, it usually becomes untenable. The other ‘cost’, of course, is that too many villages (or buses, or houses.....) have had to be destroyed in order to save them.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby OldSowBreath » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:54 pm

I said Somalia, not Sudan. All those African "S" counties blend together after a while.
Just like all those damn "I" countries - Iraq, Iran, Ireland, Indiana.

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Re: US army murder footage released

Postby PurduePilot » Thu Apr 15, 2010 1:16 am

I said Somalia, not Sudan. All those African "S" counties blend together after a while.
Just like all those damn "I" countries - Iraq, Iran, Ireland, Indiana.
The difference, however unfortunate, is that people actually care about the "I" countries you mentioned. Especially that last one.


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