Murder in Afghanistan

“And you thought Koran-burning was a problem”

I call wholly inappropriate tone.

“a story like this is an absolute disaster for the U.S. effort”

No, the US effort is/always has been and absolute disaster. Only villagers think otherwise.

Who put the troops into the middle of Afghanistan and Iraq and asked them to be nation builders? What journalists enabled the action? Now if it fails you can blame some criminal soldiers and corrupt Afghan leaders for the defeat. Just as the surge really didn’t work in Iraq, the Afghan surge will not be successful.
Again, who put the US there and who enabled are inevitable defeat?

Isn’t the killing itself the “disaster”, Michael?
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Or is it your position that it’s a disaster ONLY because the story got out? In other words, a “PR” disaster.
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No kidding, I’m really curious as to WHY you believe it fits that description.

“No, the US effort is/always has been and absolute disaster. Only villagers think otherwise.”
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You mean the Afghan villigers that no longer have Taliban rule? Those poor SOB’s that don’t get stoned to death for no reason? Those people? I’m not about to call this war a smashing success because it’s been mismanaged so badly by both adminstirations that it’s a joke. That said, there is nothing wrong with killing people that make sport of killing innocent people for no reason, both in our country and theirs.
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Get a grip on reality.
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“Just as the surge really didn’t work in Iraq…”
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Even Keith Olbermoron disgaree’s with this statement.
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“Isn’t the killing itself the “disaster”, Michael?”
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No. Killing people who will and would kill anyone who disagree’s with them on some minor tenent of a religion and are willing to commit MASS MURDER to further their agenda is perfectly fine, and if you disagree go walk though Helmund province without our troops to protect your soft, never done a hard-days work butt and find out what happens to you… scream “disaster” as they throw stones at you until you die or slowly saw your head off.
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U.S. troops are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The ROE in the most recent wars are INSANE, and if you don’t see that so are you.
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Outright murder is unacceptable, however the ROE in many cases have called “murder” what in many cases was only killing people who would have killed our troops given a few minutes or hours to do so. Soldiers have an incredibly tough job when the people that wave at them in the morning shoot an RPG at them in the afternoon and none of them wear a uniform. Our troops are trained for traditional “interstate warfare” not insurgency.
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On the “collection of body parts” that happened in Vietnam too, Special Forces soldiers collected ears from dead Viet Cong and NVA… sick yes, but effective because the Vietnamese believed that you had to have your body intact to to go heaven, hence when they see a soldier with 40 ears around his neck that’s 40 people he not only killed but sent straight to hell.
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War, by definition, is never friendly. You do what you have to do to either break the enemies will to resist, or break their ability to do so. If you fail on either of these counts, you lose. Do you want Afghanistan to be the next Vietnam, or are you HOPING it will be?

“a story like this is an absolute disaster for the U.S. effort.”

Perhaps that is why the army did nothing when one of the soldiers parents called numerous times and tried to tell the command that a killing had occurred and more were planned.

This story is not going away. The army does a terrible job of dealing with violations and disciplining abusers. Why? Because they are protecting themselves. Inspector General (IG) is not a separate unit. So when a lower rank complains, the complaint goes to a sergent that is in the same unit and puts the whistle blower in direct danger of reprisal.

The army needs to overhaul the way it handles complaints. They might claim that the procedure of whistleblowing is confidential, but I know for a fact that it is not.

Inspector General (IG) is not a separate unit. So when a lower rank complains, the complaint goes to a sergent that is in the same unit and puts the whistle blower in direct danger of reprisal.
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You are absolutely correct, meltdown, but the actual IG in any unit is usually a Lt. Col. or better who reports directly to the commander. (So guess who writes HIS performance report?)
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Having had to use the IG system in the AF once, you’ve described the process (and its ramifications) pretty well to a “T”.
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Thanks for the comments but I gotta go…. I see a “sasquatch” that needs to be “lit into”…

…and if you disagree go walk though Helmund province without our troops to protect your soft, never done a hard-days work butt and find out what happens to you… scream “disaster” as they throw stones at you until you die or slowly saw your head off.
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Where to begin… so much idiocy to address…
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First, sasquatch, which state is Helmund? Near Nebraska? East coast? West coast? Maybe one of our territories? It’s THEIR freakin’ country, neanderthal, maybe it’s understandable that they MIGHT have a problem with some “foreigners” walking around, selecting a few of them at random, and putting a “freedom bullet” into them. I know I just might.
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On the “collection of body parts” that happened in Vietnam too, Special Forces soldiers collected ears from dead Viet Cong and NVA…
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So frackin’ what? We now have a precedent so that makes it OK? As for your rationale for why it was done, exactly WHAT about that practice was designed to win over the population to our way of thinking? Seems to me it has always had the opposite effect. We won’t get into the absolute immorality of the practice, but I get the impression that stuff like that gives you a vicarious thrill, you sanctimonious dirtbag.
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My “soft, never done a day’s work butt” spent 20+ years in the AF so you can sit here and spout off, jacka$$. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell others who try to paper over stuff like this – either get down to a recruiting center and join or, if you have already done so, get to a VA hospital or psychiatric clinic and try to resolve why you think torture, corpse mutilation and indiscriminate killings by our forces are OK. You aren’t well.
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Personally, I don’t the Rules of Engagement are the problem – a long war that bloodthirsty clowns such as yourself aren’t really invested in, repeated deployments for the troops, and shifting rationales for our presence in countries that don’t really want us there are the problem. We COULD just turn “over there” into one giant mirror and be done with it… would THAT satisfy your “ROE” fetish?
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Our stated positions on human rights in the world are an absolute joke because others will (and have) pointed to incidents like these and tell us to “get our own house in order” before we start to lecture them about their actions. It’s not our words that are the problem any more – our actions – and the efforts we take (or don’t take) to address abuses by our own representatives – drown them out.
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We are supposed to be BETTER than what we are doing there.
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Do you want Afghanistan to be the next Vietnam, or are you HOPING it will be?
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Lets’ see.. the French were in Vietnam before us then left… we thought we could do better. The British and Russians were in Afghanistan before us and left. We came in and thought we could do better. The Russians tried the “brutality thing” to try to win and failed (and they were a lot more ruthless than we are).
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Exactly WHY do you think that our cutting off a few ears and killing a few random “ragheads” as an “example” is going to do anything that the Russians couldn’t (except rob us of our national “soul”)?
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You, sasquatch, are a pathetic POS.

In the army, the initial report is taken by a sergeant, unless the reporter outranks. This like reporting to the good old boy system.