Killings in Afghanistan updates
Everyone is speculating on the “motivations” that this staff sergeant had for killing 16 Afghans last Sunday morning, mostly because the Army isn’t saying much. Well, except for the report in the New York Times that he was under the influence of alcohol, which, in case you didn’t know, is against regulations for soldiers deployed to Afghanistan.
“When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues — he just snapped,” said the official, who has been briefed on the investigation and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the soldier has not yet been formally charged.
Associated Press reports that, he had witnessed, the previous day, a fellow soldier be injured;
Seattle attorney John Henry Browne told The Associated Press that according to his client’s family, the suspect was standing next to another U.S. soldier when that soldier was gravely injured.
“We have been informed that at this small base that he was at, somebody was gravely injured the day before the alleged incident — gravely injured, and that affected all of the soldiers,” he said.
Browne said his client had been reluctant to leave on his fourth deployment and surprised to be deployed to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Associated Press also reports that the seventh soldier in the last two weeks was murdered by an Afghan soldier at his post with a shot to the back of his head;
Lance Cpl. Edward J. Dycus of Greenville, Miss., was shot in the back of the head on Feb. 1 while standing guard at an Afghan-U.S. base in the Marja district of Helmand province. The exact circumstances have not been disclosed, but the Dycus family has been notified that he was killed by an Afghan soldier. Marine officials discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because it is still under investigation.
When the Pentagon announced Dycus’ death the day after the shooting, it said he died “while conducting combat operations” in Helmand. It made no mention of treachery, which has become a growing problem for U.S. and allied forces as they work closely with Afghan forces to wind down the war.
Yeah, gee, I wonder why DoD wouldn’t list the reason for Dycus’ death. I guess we don’t want to highlight the fact that we’re chasing our tails in Afghanistan. That’s why neither the US command structure and our Afghan “allies” won’t admit that there’s an organized effort to convince Afghan Army members to murder American soldiers at their jobs.
Thanks to Old Trooper for some of those links.
Category: Terror War
Right.
So the very same people our troops have trained, and sacrificed so much for to help them protect their own country, are the very same people that murder our troops?
Thank God we will be leaving that pie hole of a dump.
This is at least the third treacherous shooting of one or more of our troops by Afghan soldiers that I have read about recently.
What happens to these Afghanis? Are they killed outright, arrested, or what? The news accounts rarely say anything about it.
The “gravely injured soldier” affected evryone on post. Yet only one got drunk, “snapped” and mudered a bunch of unarmed civillians a day later. Is it just me or does it seem like they are grasping a straws.
By “they” do you mean the leftists or the Afghans? Or in this case, both?
Maybe you are right HM2. but you make an important point. ONLY one guy did this. Most soldiers are not blood thirsty “genocidal” maniacs.
I also have a problem with an nco with 11 years of service being shocked by having another deployment and being “loath” to go. Maybe if you were reluctant to deploy again, you shouldn’t have re-upped.
February 1st was prior to the Koran burning incident, yes? So, that being the case, what is the excuse for the Afghan soldier murdering the Marine? But, yeah, it’s pretty crappy DoD made a bogus “combat operations” statement about his death instead of telling the truth. Think the media will cry “cover-up” on this? I won’t be holding my breath…
@4: I was referring to the soldier and his lawyer, though the Afghans would fit too. I’ve not been up on the leftist spin as much as I normally would, so I can’t speak to that point.
@5/6 If it had happened immediately after the incident as a “sweep and clear,” I would understand the argument better (and still think it was crap). Twenty four hours later, not so much. I canm understand being tired and “loathe to go.” I know many people who have been there, done that. None of them whent berserk and shot up a couple of villages to blow off steam.
I agree with BohicaTwentyTwo.
Nothing excuses the cold blooded murder of women and children, Afghani or any one else for that matter.
I’m sure there have been thousands of troops that have done multiple deployments, seen horrible things, yet they didn’t go off and execute in cold blood women and children civilians.
Correct, HM2/Bohica22/Tman. The deliberate massacre of innocents is not a military tactic. It should never be tolerated.
I’m rather disgusted by the idea that combat stress is a logical cause for cold blooded murder.
Combat stress is not a logical cause. It can be considered a mitigating factor, but what it boils down to is whether or not this soldier knew what he was doing was wrong. Unless he was actively psychotic, he probably knew that gunning down 16 sleeping civilians was wrong.
This is just me and maybe I am having some issues with convicting this troop before the initial investigation is even over. His CNC has already said he will be held accountable for his actions. We here, myself included have convicted him already, do we really know everything that happened? People are calling for blood and I am just not ok with that. I at least want him to have a chance at a fair trial and I’ll be damned if the afghans will get a chance to try him.
Totally agree with you, Jason
I agree with Jason as well, but it is difficult not to pass personal judgement based on what we currently know. I’m hard pressed to conceive of any mitigating circumstances.
I’m not calling for blood nor have I convicted him. However, if he is going for an affirmative defense, “PTSD made me do it” is a non starter for me.
If the proximate cause was the injured soldier from the day before, he had a cooling off period of about 24 hours, took sufficent ammo with him, figured out a way off the base, walked nearly amile down the road and went house to house. That’s premeditation.
I also want to know where the CoC was in all this. I’m not sure how an NCO gets off post by himself or how he could be intoxicated without anyone knowing something was wrong.
“I’m not sure how an NCO gets off post by himself or how he could be intoxicated without anyone knowing something was wrong.”
I don’t agree with it, but believe me, it ain’t that hard.
Doc, we don’t even know that’s what happened, let the investigation finish and the trial take place before you make accusations of premeditation. I didn’t name any names, so you have to defend yourself.
I hate the use of PTSD as an excuse. For all we know this e-6 could be the fall guy for something or somebody else. I am saying it is difficult to determine truth from what actually happened. How many people were sure of what happened at Haditha, only to discover that it didn’t happen the way they were accused of. I just want him to get a fair trial.
I’m going off of what his lawyer said in the press yesterday, which had my hackles up. I want to see the investigation completed and hope that there is more of an explanation. But, it looks like his lawyer is trying to set up a mental defect defense.
I just want the guy to have a fair trial and not be railroaded. Which seems like is happening. I am trying to stay away from most of the story because too much is being done to make the afghan government happy. I am not going to shy away from the fact that I also think that some of this is coming down from way higher in his chain of command, but that is my speculation. If it is mental defect the guy needs mental help not Leavenworth.
Being a simple guy, to me it’s simple. “He’s innocent until proven guilty.” I’ve been trying to find out as much as I can and to me things are clear as mud. Because the brass are holding their cards close to the vest, we can’t be SURE of much. Besides being a bit simple but also a bit naive I still believe in the US legal system.
Mental health issues are not an excuse for any criminal activity, particularly murder. Very, very rarely is a criminal defendent so mentally unsound that they were not aware their actions were criminal.
I have never dealt with this culture, and many of you have, so please feel free to correct me on this: I don’t see why we are bothering with a mental health angle on this case anyway. I doubt the Afghans care if he was sane or crazy or somewhere in between when he did this. All they seem to want — all they are interested in — is his blood.
PintoNag,
I believe you are right.
The man deserves his day in court, and a fair trial, regardless. Frankly, given the passions involved here I’m not sure he’d get either in Afghanistan under the Afghan legal system. He will get that under the UCMJ – as well as either exoneration or severe punishment depending on the outcome of his trial.
However, from what’s been made public so far – and from the initial public statements from his attorney – I don’t personally believe there’s much chance he didn’t do what’s alleged. (I have no inside knowledge of this incident, so this is speculation on my part and I could well be wrong.) Rather, it appears to me that his attorney is already setting the stage for a defense based on temporary insanity (or for arguing mitigating circumstances at sentencing) vice a defense based on his not being the one who pulled the trigger.
Yes, it’s too early to tell much at all with certainty. But the initial indications don’t look good for this guy.
I don’t have much to add about the massacre that hasn’t been said above. To agree with CI, the evidence seems straight foward, we are just waiting for the why to be answered, which makes it impossible not to judge. I do believe he should get a fair trial though.
Something stuck out though about the death of Lance Cpl. Edward J. Dycus. He was killed standing guard on a joint base in Marjah, scene of the earlier “Surge” battle. Shot in the back of the head by an Afghan soldier. Marjah has basically been secured, the Taliban have been killed or driven out for a long while now.
The Marines also created a local neighborhood watch(think Sons of Iraq) to supplement them. I read that the local Afghan Army unit in that area are recruited mostly from the Northern minorities who have no affinity with the people there. So I see two possibilities, either the “soldier” was not an actual soldier, but a local auxillary. Said may very well have somekind of connection to the Taliban or some sort of unknown Vendetta. The second is that this guy is a soldier from outside the area, if so what is his motivation? Something to chew on.
One last point above about Marjah. We were supposed to be thinning our troops out there, sending them to other locales or just not replacing them in coming rotations. This was morphing into a gradual advisory mission. So adding to the questions I ask above, is quality of the Army the primary issue? Do the Taliban still have significant shadow infrastructure that we have not dismantled yet? Talk amongst yourselves.
Saw this as the top story on Yahoo news just now: Afghan killings suspect owes $1.5M in fraud case
Also, interesting headline I saw on my way in to work this morning related to this. I think it was USA Today. Headline was something like “Many Americans cut Afghan killings soldier some slack”.
Interesting how the media is framing this with those two stories. Instead of blaming it on PTSD or Booosh’s evil war (as they did from 2002-2008), they seem to be (1) saying Americans are okay with the mass murder and (2) saying it is due to personal problems unrelated to the war effort.