U.S. Soldiers Open Fire On Civilians In Afghanistan

[rjdaae]

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, March 11 (Reuters) - Western forces shot dead 16 civilians including nine children in southern Kandahar province on Sunday, Afghan officials said, in a rampage that witnesses said was carried out by American soldiers who were laughing and appeared drunk.

One Afghan father who said his children were killed in the shooting spree

Comments

[milleniumrex]

Goddamnit. Awful.

There really need to be better psych screenings for the military.

[theguindo]

"Better" implies they even have any.

At least, I don't recall a psych screening at MEPS. The most I got was security clearance interviews.

[hourglasscreate]

Exactly.

[rex_dart]

and what exactly are we supposed to be ~psych screening for?

[theguindo]

Remember my brother who's going into the army? He told me yesterday that "everyone plays by the rules (in the military)"

This is a really common mindset, the belief that people with authority will never abuse it. Most people in the military do play by the rules, and they don't want to believe that their comrades would ever do anything so hideously wrong

[emofordino]

MTE. we all saw what happened as a result of burning those copies of the koran, how could those soldiers not think, "hm, i wonder if there will be any consequences to shooting down innocent women and children while drunk, like the taliban retaliating against my fellow soldiers/marines/etc or even possibly my own country where my family lives?" how could a person be so fucking thoughtless? this whole situation is so fucking disgusting.

[romp]

I too thought of the Koran burning, something I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around. Has that story been verified? Because how could anyone sign off on that? Or if it was an accident, who TALKED about it if the burning had already started and couldn't be prevented?! To tell someone, you'd have to know people were going to be outraged...

[doverz]

Wow, this is so fucking horrible.

And the people who still seem to think the military as a whole is a paragon of virtue in the world is full of shit. Yes, there are plenty of awesome soldiers but there are way too many who do horrible acts like this.

[hourglasscreate]

I unfortunately completely believe this.

I spent 20 years in the military and one of my most vivid memories is of doing door guard during an exercise where a young man came up to the door and pointed a rifle at me. *He* thought it was a great joke, but I had been taught gun safety as a child and will *ALWAYS* take a gun pointed at me seriously. When I went to CCQ to report the incident, they looked at me like, "What's your problem?"

These kids are handed deadly weapons without anyone ever checking to see if they can be trusted with them. Then something like this happens and the military is surprised. The surprising thing is that it doesn't happen even more frequently. (Or maybe it does, but it just doesn't get the publicity that this one did.)

[theguindo]

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

We had a Drill Sergeant in AIT who made a kid PT until he dropped because he forgot range safety and accidentally pointed his muzzle toward the DS. I had muzzle awareness and weapon safety drilled into my head so hard over the course of basic training that I could give lessons on it in my sleep. I cannot believe anybody in charge of troops would shrug off an incident like that, holy fuck that is unacceptable.

These kids are handed deadly weapons without anyone ever checking to see if they can be trusted with them.

This so hard oh my fucking GOD.

[tabaqui]

This is just.... WTH. I'm angry, i'm heartsick for the grieving families, i'm now worried about the soldiers and civilians over there that will face retaliation....

We should never have been there in the first place, we need to disengage and get the hell out.