US soldier goes on shooting spree in Afghanistan

[shikitohno]

A soldier walked off his base at around 3AM Sunday, local time, armed with a gun and proceeded to systematically shoot down Afghan civilians in the nearby village. According to the news report I just saw on TV, he went door to door, shooting any Afghan civiliains he could. He killed a total of 16 civilians, some of them children, before returning to base and being arrested.

This guy is certainly going to be up the creek, but who the hell let him walk off a combat base at 3AM with a rifle, all by himself? I imagine there's going to be several more people who get in trouble over this one. The soldier has yet to be named, but is allegedly a staff sergeant.

[Frosted]

You bring up a good point, oddly one I hadn't thought about. Who let him walk off the base?

It's a terrible tragedy and one that will end up getting a lot of soldiers killed. I understand completely the breaking point situations soldiers find themselves in but this is inexcusable. If the guy had mental health problems they should have been dealt with.....but then again no-one really knows what goes on inside somebody's head.

No matter what the if's buts why's and maybe's might be its a terrible tragedy for the innocent Afghan civilians and it's not something that will ever be repairable.

[shikitohno]

It also comes at a pretty inopportune moment, as far as relations go. Right after Afghans are calming down from the Qu'ran incident, this asshole goes off and does something stupid like this. Certainly going to make things worse for the guys still on the ground there, as it gives the locals good reason to be pissed off with our forces, and mistrust us.

[Mdisch]

What a looney!
He certainly stirred up some extra tension, and he's going to make it really tough for the remaining troops to reestablish a good relationship with the locals.
9 of the 16 dead civilians were children, by the way - which makes it even more insane. I can't believe something like this would just happen out of the blue.
And regarding who let him off the base it might have been some of his own soldiers(Seeing as he was staff sergeant) not wanting to disobey direct orders - but still it is a lack of security that really saddens me.

[shikitohno]

Even if it were soldiers under his command, they'll probably still be in a good deal of trouble for having let him go. I'm no expert on the rules for these situations, but I imagine letting an individual out of the base with a weapon, in the middle of the night is against a number of them. This certainly should have ended with someone saying, "Hold on, let me just clear this with the guy in charge. We're going to need to make an exception for this."

It'll be interesting to see what sort of indications the army may have had ahead of time that something was wrong. Some people will just sit silently and come up with ridiculous plans like this without letting on to anyone that there was something wrong. A lot of them leave clues though, and sadly this is probably something that could have been prevented entirely if people had paid more attention.

[Frosted]

From my experience, if a Staff Sergeant just came up and ordered me to open the gates I wouldn't have questioned it. I open the gate.

and BTW - you never ever leave your weapon. Nobody would ever leave a base without one.

[shikitohno]

Concerning the weapon, I was just thinking it another warning flag given the circumstances. I was under the impression that you also never, ever leave a base alone, at 3AM. Thought things were generally done in groups.

[Frosted]

You're absoloutely right mate - just not about the weapon.

[sgreger1]

He was a staff sgt, and it's usually privates (or at least E-4 or under) who are pulling guard duty, so I mean if a staff sgt says I need to leave no one is going to stop him really, and you don't go ANYWHERE without your rifle (namely outside of the gate) so I don't think him getting off base was difficult at all.

As for his actions, I hope he burns for a long time. I have no sympathy for someone who purposely shoots women and children, or innocent men in cold blood. Frankly I am surprised he was only able to pick off 16 people considering he was literally going house to house just mowing folks down.


Oddly though, they claim this happened in 2 villages that were a mile apart, so many believe there was more than one person, however there appears to be no evidence for that and he may have just made the walk.

Either way, this is just ****ed up man. I understand that people snap, but this is no better than some terrorist bombing a marketplace, it wasn't in the name of religion that he killed people i'm guessing but it doesn't excuse the fact that it's never okay to kill families in cold blood like that.

[sgreger1]

Even if it were soldiers under his command, they'll probably still be in a good deal of trouble for having let him go. I'm no expert on the rules for these situations, but I imagine letting an individual out of the base with a weapon, in the middle of the night is against a number of them. This certainly should have ended with someone saying, "Hold on, let me just clear this with the guy in charge. We're going to need to make an exception for this."

Lol, most operations are done at night, so people exiting the gate at nighttime is completely normal. And you carry your rifle everywhere, you never leave it further than arms distance, so no one would bat an eye that he was exiting the gate at night time with a rifle, like any of the other dozens of soldiers that likely passed through at the same time. I don't know what FOB this happened at, if it was a big or a small one etc, but I doubt anyone will get in trouble for letting him out. If an NCO walks up to the private on guard duty and is like "open the gates", that is a lawfull order and no one in the entire military would get in trouble for opening the gate.


Edit; You are right though about him going out alone. Everything is always done in groups, I am curious what his explanation was upon leaving, not that he had to give one. But I feel like it would be odd to have a guy just roll out of the gate solo like that without anyone thinking "that's odd". I don't know, different forward operating bases are different though, it may not be uncommon where he was at.

[Frosted]

I think that this man has single handedly destroyed the campaign in Afghanistan. If you don't have the support of the civilian population, you have nothing.

[shikitohno]

I wouldn't say signlehandedly. He certainly hasn't helped things, but there's a host of factors against this campaign. Hitting civilians with drones, civilians being caught in the crossfire, the odd soldiers who misbehave in egregious manners, the corrupt puppet state of Hamid Karzai, the occasional move that offends the local religion, and a decade of combat with little improvement for life of the average Afghan are just some of the things that have lost us the support of the locals. One more asshole screwing things up amount to little more than sprinkles on top.

[sgreger1]

But we're going for the record baby, 3x as long as WWII, that's a new high score!

All I know is I am glad that we are slowly winding down, but I would not want to be in the units that have to leave last. I expect we'll see some nice surprise attacks at the very end of the pulllout. This will allow the insurgents an easy target, and will allow them to make one final strike before we leave so they can really drive home the message that "they kicked us outta there".

[desirexe]

The interesting thing..he is from JBLM (Fort Lewis, WA)...also ongoing out here is a huge investigation into Madigan Hospital psych team for over-turning PTSD diagnoses. Shi* will hit the fan if he was one of these cases just tossed to the wind. I just can't understand how someone can just snap...but then again, I think most spree killers don't have prior records or anything...I am just thinking aloud and really following this case very closely. If the US Is talking of death penalty, I really think the Afghans should be the ones to carry the punishment out, give them some justice and maybe calm some thinking of retaliating. Scary situation for our troops.

[sgreger1]

The interesting thing..he is from JBLM (Fort Lewis, WA)...also ongoing out here is a huge investigation into Madigan Hospital psych team for over-turning PTSD diagnoses. Shi* will hit the fan if he was one of these cases just tossed to the wind. I just can't understand how someone can just snap...but then again, I think most spree killers don't have prior records or anything...I am just thinking aloud and really following this case very closely. If the US Is talking of death penalty, I really think the Afghans should be the ones to carry the punishment out, give them some justice and maybe calm some thinking of retaliating. Scary situation for our troops.

Well due to the restrictions of the law, there is really no possibility of a foreign government carrying out the execution, and knowing the death penalty in the US it will be another 20 years before he actually gets the chopping block anyways and he will long be forgotten by then.

Oh my someone would be in some hot water if this was an overturned PTSD case though!