to think that the soldier who shot dead those people should be handed over to the Afghan government?

[TheRhubarb]

I'm not sure what responses I will get here so let me just run through my thoughts on this.

He shot dead children and beat the women before shooting them too and dragging their bodies to a house, covering them with cushions and sticks and burning them.

If this had happened over here, we would try the murderer according to our own laws.
Even if the murderer had fled back to his own country, we would order his deportation.
Afghanistan have full UK and US support, so what does it say about our faith in their government if the US refuse to release the man into their custody?
Why is it one rule for us and another for them?

Many soldiers will now also die because of this man's act and amongst them might be British soldiers, so he will potentially be responsible for many more deaths yet by revenge acts.

The only way to appease the Afghan people and to show our trust in the government is surely to hand the perpetrator over to them? Only in that way can we hope to prevent revenge attacks.

Is one man's life - a murderers life at that - worth more than those of serving soldiers in the US and UK army?

I'm willing to listen to all opinions on this.

I heard on the news he has been flown out of Afghanistan and has still not been charged. I wonder if they will have to assess his mental health in America before they charge him?

I'm sure they will and I'm sure they will come up with some sort of mental illness to fit the crime. Because as we all know, those with mental health problems are much more likely to commit these sorts of crimes than those with fully functioning minds.

My uncle and several other relatives had PTSD after serving in Vietnam (if you have seen Platoon, that is basically what they were doing over there). They have spent their entire lives since as drug addicts, occasional criminals, sometimes homeless. They are still nice guys but just really, really messed up. If they ever, god forbid, freak out and kill a lot of people, it would be ridiculous to say the PTSD had no part in it. But that's not the same as saying everyone with PTSD would do something like that, or that PTSD excuses it.

It's a bit different from WW2 vets because a big factor in PTSD is homefront attitudes and the legitimacy of the war. People need to rationalise the horrors they experience in war as serving some higher purpose, like defending their families or rescuing others, and being seen as heroes also helps a lot. When you have to experience such things in an 'illegal war' and society at home is pretty detached from it all, it's more likely soldiers will suffer PTSD.

This is all hypothesis however isn't it? We have no idea if this soldier is suffering from PTSD or not. Whilst some say that it's probable, we don't actually know this man, he could be a violent person anyway whose wife suffers DV, we just don't know? What is likely however is that the Americans will find some mental health problem that will ensure he escapes the death penalty. I don't think the US public would ever tolerate a US soldier on death row no matter how horrific the crimes, esp crimes that were committed abroad.

I don't know Rhubarb... as I said, no one had any problem with McVeigh being executed, though he clearly had mental health problems. I don't know if you're familiar with the Unabomber but he was also clearly insane, but would have been executed most likely except his brother only turned him in on condition that he would not be given the death penalty.

I realise they were not soldiers serving abroad at the time, but I still think the US public would not really have a problem with someone like this getting the death penalty, because of the scale of the killing and the fact it didn't occur during a combat operation.

Hmm a bit different though in that both those people killed American citizens and it's not clear if the Unabomber had a mental health illness.

This soldier killed Afghan citizens in Afghanistan whilst he was based there as a serving soldier. I believe the US public have a great sympathy for serving soldiers - as do the UK - and I will happily eat my hat if he does end up getting the death penalty.

the big difference is McVeigh killed American citizens whilst this guy has killed Afghanis- will be very interesting to see what becomesof him

Iwas thinking about PTSD today and how it would compare with Current and Constant Unlenting Stress Disorder that the Afghans no doubt experience- I bet they long for it to be Post Traumatic Stress....

Yes, it is a bit different, but as an American myself my sense is that those Americans who don't oppose the death penalty would not oppose it being given in this case (keeping in mind many Americans oppose the death penalty in all cases).

This guy killed 9 children, and there is no way he can claim it's an accident.

Actually, I just went and looked up what happened to the soldiers in the Mahmudiyah killings in Iraq. (This was the horrible case where a group of US soldiers gang-raped an Iraqi teenager, then killed her and her entire family to cover it up.)

The ringleader of this crime the one who instigated it and actually shot everyone was tried in the US and prosecutors sought the death penalty, but the jury decided on life imprisonment instead. Hmm.

Oh, apparently some on the jury wanted the death penalty, but they were split overall. In the US it needs to be unanimous.

Well considering the Captain of the USS Vincennes killed 290 Iranian civilins and was awarded the Legion of Merit medal for the period of service in which he did it, I am not going to hold my breath for anything other than a show trial.

That was a horrible tragedy, and he never should have been awarded that medal, but it's a really different situation. They were able to portray it as a 'fog of war' moment, in which an entire group of men believed they were shooting down a fighter aircraft, not a civilian plane (although they were of course negligent in assuming this).

There is no ambiguity in a lone gunman shooting children in the head. There is also no political downside for the US to throw the book at this guy.

If Obama has already said the death penalty is an option, this will not be a show trial.

Well we can only wait and see.

I'm against the death penalty in general but I can see that to avoid a political catastrophe it may have to be done. That's if he doesn't get off on mental health grounds, although that's never stopped them before has it?

I just shudder to think about the increased danger faced by troops in Afghanistan now

I think it's disgusting the way the media are reporting the story and trying to make excuses for him. So, he saw his best friend having a leg blown off and he wasn't supposed to be in Afghanistan. Yes, very traumatic and upsetting, but you don't break into innocent peoples' homes in the middle of the night and murder them, especially nine children. Are the lives of Afghans really not as valuable as westerners? I do think the U.S. military should take some responsibility for his mental state and I would prefer to see him locked up for life than face the death penalty, but what he has been through can never excuse his actions.

Not sure if any of these details about him have been verified yet. But no doubt they will blame mental illness.

His solicitor has been talking on the record.

He says the death penalty is a possibility.

I'm certain they will. But in the terms of sudden breakdown rather than ongoing mh issues. Which will be correct.

I think you need to try and distance yourself from the stigmatisation of mental health concerns such as depression, bipolar erc etc, and see the sort of MH issues suffered by soldiers as different. There is no denying that MH is stigmatised. But that is a completely different kettle of fish to this sort of incident. You are better off working towards society recognising that than denying than soldiers can suffer from catastrophic MH breakdown rather than just being evil bastards by virtue of their job choice.

To keep linking everyday MH stigma to a tragedy probably caused by PTSD or similar is confusing the issue. I know it's emotive, but you need to step back and recognise the difference.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17445305

electoral campaigns suspended

Hi! I'm not a regular poster, but I would like to mention a book I'm reading at the moment. Very enlightening and beautiful, very honest and useful for anyone interested in these questions.
It's called What It Is Like To Go To War, by Karl Marlantes. He also wrote a novel in the same vein called Matterhorn (which I haven't read yet).
As for the OP, YABunderstandablyU.

YABU. The thought of more American soldiers in my country (Australia) terrifies me. There is so much that is good about America but the quality of soldier that they turn out is not one of them. My grandfather fought in WW2 against the Japanese and the standard running grim joke was that if you were tired of life, hang out with the Americans. If the enemy didn't kill you, they surely would.

Sorry, I meant YANBU

Sgt Robert Bales has now been charged with 17 counts of murder, and these are capital charges.

pulsemedia.org/2012/03/31/afghan-my-lai-robert-bales-was-not-alone/