Not again. US soldier goes on rampage in Afghanistan.

[PLATO]

20 posts and no hawks telling us how important the mission is?

Times are changing when even they realise the futility of it.

Which mission is that?

Going in to root out AQ and replace the Taliban? I supported and still support that mission. Nation building in a country that is more tribal than anything else? That was just plain stupid.

For that matter, the idea of nationbuilding in and of itself is a poorly suited task for the way the U.S. is equipped and trained. Better to kill or weaken the enemies who attacked us and then get the hell out...let them stay busy with the task of "nationbuilding".

[kentonio]

The problem with 'kill them and leave' is that you end up with countries run by warlords with a populace who hate you.

[The Mad Monk]

...and can do very little about it. I don't see the problem.

[DinoDoc]

Indeed.

[kentonio]

...and can do very little about it. I don't see the problem.

You mean like that little band of Islamists who flew several 747s into some New York skyscrapers a decade ago?

[The Mad Monk]

You mean the ones with college educations from rich families? From countries that have been "allies" of the US for years? Who absorbed enough of Western culture to have no problems going into bars? Those Islamists?

[binTravkin]

It doesn't work to "get in, kill and get out".
There is going to be collateral damage and that's what mostly creates the outrage.
Thus you kill one enemy and create several more in his place.

It is written on wikipedia that:

By the end of 2008, the U.S. had spent approximately $900 billion in direct costs on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

GDP of Afghanistan: ~$18 billion or just under $600 per capita (2011 estimate)
GDP of Iraq: ~$108 billion or $3300 per capita (2011 estimate)

Now, war in Afghanistan:
18 * (2008 - 2001) = $126 billion
Iraq:
108 * (2008 - 2003) = $540 billion

Therefore
U.S. military budget (direct costs) $900 billion > combined GDP of invaded countries summed up for entire time of invasion ~$670 billion


If this does not describe the mind-numbing futility of the effort, I don't know what does.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Now he will just get dishonorable discharge and then continue living in U.S. as if (almost) nothing had happened.
Or at least that is what seems to usually happen, no?

The defense attorney says he expects it to be tried as a death penalty case.

[DinoDoc]

It doesn't work to "get in, kill and get out".

You've yet to say why not. Seriously, in what way does "The Mouse that Roared" approach to warfare work when there is nothing worth rebuilding in the first place?

[PLATO]

The problem with 'kill them and leave' is that you end up with countries run by warlords with a populace who hate you.

Yes, but the point can't always be to "make friends" with your defeated enemy. As long as people have different ideas, we will have enemies. Sometimes the idea needs to be just defeat the attackers and lay down the concept of deterence.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

...and can do very little about it. I don't see the problem.

was that not the case before you got in... warlords with a populace who hates you ~(or at least hated you less than they do now) except for the brand, so you guys felt like the brand needs to be destroyed, which with a certain kill seems to have been accomplished, and you are ready to withdraw...

[Wezil]

The invasion and overthrow of the Taliban didn't make Afghans hate us. The decade long occupation did.

[The Mad Monk]

Long-Planned Visit Lands Panetta in Tense AfghanistanBy ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: March 14, 2012

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta landed here Wednesday morning for an unannounced and tense visit, the first by a senior member of the Obama administration since an American soldier reportedly killed 16 Afghan civilians, mostly children and women.

The two-day visit was planned months ago, but it has taken on a new urgency since an American staff sergeant slipped out of a military base in the southern province of Kandahar on Sunday and, according to villagers and senior defense officials, went door to door in nearby villages, shooting civilians.

“We will be challenged by our enemies, we will be challenged by ourselves, we will be challenged by the hell of war itself,” Mr. Panetta told some 200 Marines, Afghan security officers and troops from other coalition nations at this vast military base in the desert of Helmand Province, abutting Kandahar. Early in the day, a roadside bomb struck a minivan in Helmand at about 1 a.m., destroying the vehicle and killing eight civilians.

In a sign of the nervousness surrounding Mr. Panetta’s trip, the Marines and other troops who were waiting in a tent for the defense secretary to speak were abruptly asked by their commander to get up, place their weapons — M-16 and M-4 automatic rifles and 9-mm pistols — outside the tent and then return unarmed. The commander, Sgt. Maj. Brandon Hall, told reporters he was acting on orders from superiors.

“All I know is, I was told to get the weapons out,” he said. Asked why, he replied, “Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy; we just adjust.”

Normally, American forces in Afghanistan keep their weapons with them when the defense secretary visits and speaks to them. The Afghans in the tent waiting for Mr. Panetta were not armed to begin with, as is typical.

Later, American officials said that the top commander in Helmand, Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, had decided on Tuesday that no one would be armed while Mr. Panetta spoke to them, but the word did not reach those in charge in the tent until shortly before Mr. Panetta was due to arrive.

General Gurganus told reporters later that he wanted a consistent policy for everyone in the tent. “You’ve got one of the most important people in the world in the room,” he said. He insisted that his decision had nothing to do with the shooting on Sunday. “This is not a big deal,” he said.

Mr. Panetta, like President Obama, has denounced the killings and vowed to bring the killer to justice, a message he is to deliver in person to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and top Afghan defense and interior officials while he is in Afghanistan. The killings have further clouded Afghan-American relations, which were already strained.

American commanders said that Helmand was relatively quiet after the killings, unlike Panjwai, the district in Kandahar where the rampage occurred. Militants there attacked a memorial service for the 16 victims on Tuesday when an Afghan government delegation was present, firing machine guns and assault rifles from their motorcycles and killing at least one Afghan soldier; a motorcycle bomb went off Wednesday near where the same delegation was staying in Kandahar city, killing a security officer.

Later on Wednesday, Mr. Panetta flew to a remote military base in western Helmand, Combat Outpost Shukvani, where American Marines fight alongside troops from Georgia, the former Soviet republic. The battalion commander of the 750 Georgian troops, Lt. Col. Alex Tugushi, lost both legs in a homemade bomb explosion in December; he is recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington, where President Obama has visited him.

Mr. Panetta read a letter to the Georgians from Colonel Tugushi that said in part: “Unfortunately, I could not complete my service with you. But I am proud of all of you — those who have fallen and those who continue to serve. You are all heroes who will go down in Georgian history.”

Mr. Panetta told the troops in Helmand that the rampage on Sunday will not change the administration’s plans to withdraw 23,000 American troops from the country by the end of the summer and the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014, although some could remain longer if the Afghans and Americas negotiate a long-term agreement.

Mr. Panetta told reporters on his plane on Monday that the killings in Panjwai were a horrific part of the decade-old conflict in Afghanistan.

“War is hell,” he said. “These kinds of events and incidents are going to take place, they’ve taken place in any war, they’re terrible events, and this is not the first of those events, and it probably will not be the last.” He added: “But we cannot allow these events to undermine our strategy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/world/asia/panetta-visits-afghanistan-following-massacre.html?_r=1&hp

“All I know is, I was told to get the weapons out,” he said. Asked why, he replied, “Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy; we just adjust.”

Nice to see the administration trusts the troops.

Early in the day, a roadside bomb struck a minivan in Helmand at about 1 a.m., destroying the vehicle and killing eight civilians.

This is why we don't need to worry about them hating us after we leave. they will be much too busy hating each other, per usual.

[MOBIUS]

This latest atrocity has less to do about Afghanistan and more about the legacy of Iraq...

Until the invasion of Iraq, the coalition had AQ and the Taliban on the back foot, but in the very final hour with some kind of potential victory in their sights and the continued goodwill of the populace at large, they... took the foot off the gas and declared an illegal war on Iraq resulting in Allowing AQ and the Taliban to regroup; Increasing animosity among the populace towards those involved in attacking Iraq; in fact just a whole cluster**** of **** because doofus thought he could fight a war on two fronts...

But the main legacy of Iraq this time around appears to be the fact that this soldier is a veteran of three tours there and his mind finally snapped...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/lewis-mcchord-us-soldier-attack?intcmp=239

[MOBIUS]

The US has a PTSD time bomb on its hands.

Afghan Massacre: Rush To Judgment