Winning Hearts and Minds, Cont’d

12 Comments

1. 

   utried on March 11, 2012 at 3:18 pm

   I want to see all of the NATO troops out by October. This is a nightmare.
   It won’t get better and we need out of there.
   The combat troops are supposed to start leaving next year and a lot of equipment is leaving this year.
   Now we wait to see the retaliation on NATO troops.
   Awful.

2. 

   Oui on March 11, 2012 at 3:44 pm

   .

   US soldier kills 16 Afghans, deepening crisis

   (The Guardian) – The attack took place in two villages in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar province. The villages — Balandi and Alkozai — are about 500 yards (meters) away from a U.S. base. The shooting started around 3 a.m., said Asadullah Khalid, the government representative for southern Afghanistan and a member of the delegation that went to investigate the incident.

   “This may have been the act of a lone, deranged soldier. But the people of Afghanistan will see it for what it was, a wanton massacre of innocent civilians.”

   A resident of the village of Alkozai, Abdul Baqi, told the AP that, based on accounts of his neighbors, the American gunman went into three different houses and opened fire.

   “When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again,” Baqi said.

   Twelve of the dead were from Balandi, said Samad Khan, a farmer who lost all 11 members of his family, including women and children. Khan was away from the village when the incident occurred and returned to find his family members shot and burned. One of his neighbors was also killed, he said. It was unclear how or why the bodies were burned.

   An AP photographer saw 15 bodies between the two villages caught up in the shooting. Some of the bodies had been burned, while others were covered with blankets.

   The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians

   Four soldiers from a Stryker brigade out of Lewis-McChord, Washington, have been sent to prison in connection with the 2010 killings of three unarmed men during patrols in Kandahar province’s Maiwand district, which is just northwest of Panjwai. They were accused of forming a “kill team” that murdered Afghan civilians for sport — slaughtering victims with grenades and powerful machine guns during patrols, then dropping weapons near their bodies to make them appear to have been combatants.

   • Zhari district birthplace of Mullah Omar and the Taliban

   Cross-posted from my breaking news diary – US Soldier in Kandahar Killing Spree

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

3. 

   DaveW on March 11, 2012 at 3:55 pm

   Your conclusion is indisputably true, but “Ugh” doesn’t begin to express the disgusting rerun of Vietnam. It goes beyond tragedy and into unvarnished atrocity. Not the least of its consequences will be making it harder for the US and NATO to get the hell out of where they never belonged in the first place, because it would be reported as proof of America running away from its own guilt and failure.

   • 

     Oui on March 11, 2012 at 4:45 pm

     .
     No one knows better than Connie Chapman that almost 150 years since troops came home with “soldier’s heart” after the Civil War, the U.S. military is still struggling to identify and treat what’s now called PTSD.

     Wal-Mart Therapy Tried as Pentagon Copes With Traumatized Troops

     "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

4. 

   Bazooka Joe on March 11, 2012 at 3:59 pm

   This will have zero effect on the timing of the withdrawal or the relationship between ISAF forces and the Afghan people.

   Western observers are shocked and appalled at this “criminal aberration,” but to many Afghans, all civilian casualties were already murder.

   • 

     DaveW on March 11, 2012 at 4:07 pm

     And legalistically speaking, they are correct.

5. 

   Salunga on March 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    

       Afghan civilians hate our troops. Our troops hate the Afghan civilians. Lets go now. Some cultures are better appreciating each others merits from a distance.

6. 

   TarheelDem on March 11, 2012 at 6:54 pm

   When the chain-of-command tolerates (encourages?) the calling “ragheads” of people in a country that US policy maintains that the US is helping, you open the door to these sorts of incidents.

   When the chain-of-command pursues a policy of torture and extra-judicial murder of poorly identified combatants,  the door is open to these sorts of incidents.

   When the chain-of-command deploys folks repeatedly without adequate downtime, the door is open to these sorts of incidents.

   When a President continues to pursue a war that has no capability  of being experienced by the troops as “won”, you have these sorts of incidents and the emotional groundwork for a “stab-in-the-back” mindset that makes the next round of war fever as inevitable as the Gulf War followed the defeat in Vietnam.

   • 

     ishmael on March 11, 2012 at 11:46 pm

     The chain of command does not encourage the use of terms like “ragheads”. Do those slurs come in up conversation amongst some joes? Sure. “Hajji” is another one I’ve heard once in awhile.

     The military is a microcosm of the American society. We have all the types you have encountered in the civilian world in our ranks.

     In addition to the other things you mentioned is the perception that our friends are dying for no damn good reason. Without minimizing today’s event, I think I’m surprised that this kind of thing hasn’t happened more often.

     • 

       TarheelDem on March 12, 2012 at 8:12 am

       I think I’m surprised that this kind of thing hasn’t happened more often.

       It might have happened more often but not as clearcut a case a one soldier slipping off in the early morning an blowing an innocent family away.

       After all whistleblowers on this kind of behavior are punished severely.  Bradley Manning is facing trial for “aiding the enemy” for alledgedly leaking the video that has been called “Collateral Murder” to Wikileaks.

       Probably the first incident of this kind in Iraq was the murder of demonstrators in Fallujah that turned Iraq into an insurgency.  “We weren’t trained to do police work.” was the pathetic excuse of one soldier quoted on NPR at the time.  In other words, all he considered himself trained to do was kill.

       The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are in fact, like those before them in Vietnam, dying for no good reason.  The militarization of the response to al Quaeda was a mistake from the beginning.

7. 

   Oui on March 12, 2012 at 5:37 am

   .

   Army Ranger killed self at JBLM before 9th tour of duty

   (Bellingham Herald) Dec. 22, 2011 – Staff Sgt. Jared Hagemann, 25, of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, killed himself June 28, 2011 at Lewis-McChord. The Yelm soldier left behind a wife and two children.

   His widow, Ashley Joppa-Hagemann, pushed for the Rangers to give him a memorial service in the same manner that it honors soldiers who die in combat. Her efforts to draw attention to his suicide peaked when she challenged Rumsfeld at Rumsfeld’s Lewis-McChord book-signing event. She was escorted off the base.

   “Simply put, Jared was one of our nation’s best, ” said Maj. Tony Keller, commander of Hagemann’s Ranger company. “He signed up to serve his nation and protect his family during a time of war. Remember him for his actions overseas while he defended this great country, and remember him as a loving father to his sons.”

   Ashley Joppa-Hagemann shared in August that her husband showed strains after returning from a deployment in 2009. She said he’d drink too much to forget what he had seen and tried to kill himself three times. When he was released from a mental health commitment in 2009, she said he wanted to resign from the Rangers but was pressured by comrades to stay in.

   The Ranger regiment said in a press release that Hagemann had re-enlisted for another six years during his last deployment, in 2010-11. The Ranger battalion returned from Afghanistan last week, ending its 15th deployment since the war on terror began.

   Widow says Ranger killed self to avoid 9th tour

   (AZ Central) – In 2010, he received a glowing evaluation with top marks and raters noting his unparalleled loyalty to the Army and Rangers and outstanding potential. Later that year, he would return to Afghanistan for his eighth combat tour. His eight tours lasted, on average, about four months, according to the Army.

   His wife said he was growing increasingly frustrated and repeatedly asked to leave the Rangers unit. The Army’s DeSantis said the battalion leadership was not aware of any request for him to leave the unit.

   “In the last month, he put a gun to his head three times. He told me every day was a struggle to wake up and want to live,” Joppa-Hagemann said. “He said the things he had seen and done, no God would have forgiven him.”

   Demand justice for SSG Jared Hagemann

   (March Forward) – SSG Hagemann was determined to not deploy again. But in the U.S. military, there is a standard response for trying to receive help for PTSD.

   “People mocked him. They judged him,” said Ashley. “They told him to `man up. Take a sleeping pill. You’re fine. It’s all in your head.'”

   SSG Hagemann was assigned to tasks and duties reserved for “troublemakers.” As for his PTSD symptoms, he was ordered to attend an “anger management” class. This was the extent of the treatment he received.

   • Joint Base Lewis-McChord called “most troubled” U.S. base  

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     Oui on March 12, 2012 at 9:02 am

     .

     Madigan team reversed 285 PTSD diagnoses, Sen. Murray says

     (Seattle Times) – The Army Medical Command has identified some 285 Madigan Army Medical Center patients whose diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder were reversed as they went through a screening process for possible medical retirements, according to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

     Last month, Madigan’s screeners for PTSD were removed from that duty while the Army Medical Command investigates why diagnoses were changed. Soldiers diagnosed with PTSD as they prepare to leave the military can qualify for a medical retirement that offers a pension and other benefits.

     The soldiers were screened by Madigan’s forensic psychiatry team over a five-year period dating back to 2007, and will be invited to undergo new reviews at Madigan or other military facilities, according to a release Wednesday by the Western Regional Medical Command, which has oversight over Madigan.

     Soldiers eligible for review were identified from a review of 1,500 soldiers screened by the forensic team for all types of mental-health conditions, the command said. The investigation at Madigan was triggered, in part, by complaints from soldiers who had previously been diagnosed with PTSD but were later accused by the screening team of exaggerating symptoms and sometimes malingering.

     Earlier this year, 14 soldiers underwent new mental-health reviews at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Six had their PTSD diagnoses reinstated. The investigation also was spurred by concerns that Madigan doctors involved in the screening were unduly influenced by worries about the escalating costs of paying benefits to those who qualify for medical retirements.

     "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."