Afghan massacre: the Taleban response

Concocting a story... Anybody believe this was the work of one man?

Comments from Mike Ruppert:

-- I never believed it was a single shooter because I did a little math. The first reports said that this "lone" individual carried enough ammo to kill 19, plus the chemicals, and then dragged many of the bodies to a location where he tried to burn them. A beginning detective could tell you that more than one had to be involved.

It was an experience watching my thoughts as I read this story. "Well, it's RT, maybe we should wait for confirmation." Then I just smacked myself. Collapsenet has been bringing you a ceaseless record about how RT gets things right and mainstream western media can't find its ass with both hands. And that shuck-and-jive Barack Obama just keeps on shoveling blatant lies without shame or honor.

The United States has absolutely no honor. It deserves no respect in the community of nations. I am sick to my stomach and very sick in my heart. And I am afraid I will die without ever once seeing my country behave honorably in the world. Whatever's coming, the U.S. has both earned it, and is now absolutely begging for it. Somebody needs to put this government down. It would be a mercy killing and it might just be the one thing that would liberate and allow more of humankind to survive collapse.

This is just beyond words for me now. It is hard to contain the sorrow. -- MCR

Afghanistan massacre: soldier was stationed at 'troubled base'

Long before the US soldier suspected of slaying 16 Afghan villagers was identified as an Army sergeant from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the installation had earned a reputation as the most troubled outpost in the American military.

The Telegraph,

13 March, 2012

The Army station near Tacoma, Washington, has come under scrutiny as the home of several soldiers involved in wartime atrocities in 2010 and a base scarred by a record number of suicides last year. It has deployed troops repeatedly to Iraq, and late last year, sent soldiers to Afghanistan.

The independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes in December 2010 called Lewis-McChord "the most troubled base in the military."

"This was not a rogue soldier," Jorge Gonzalez, a veteran and activist, said in a statement about Sunday's killings. He called Lewis-McChord "a rogue base, with a severe leadership problem."

In the 2010 case, Lewis-McChord was the home base of five enlisted men from the former 5th Stryker Brigade who were charged with premeditated murder in connection with three separate killings of unarmed Afghan civilians.

The victims of those slayings, which until Sunday's massacre ranked as the most egregious atrocities by US military personnel in 10 years of war in Afghanistan, died in random attacks staged to look like legitimate combat engagements.

In the latest case of violence against innocent Afghans, an Army staff sergeant walked off a base in the Kandahar province in the middle of the night and began shooting civilians in two nearby villages.

Sixteen villagers died and five more were wounded.

The accused sergeant, now in custody, was part of the 2-3 Infantry, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Lewis-McChord. He had arrived in Afghanistan in December 2011 after serving three tours of duty in Iraq.

A 2008 military study found a sharp rise in the incidence of mental health problems reported among non-commissioned officers who were on their third or fourth deployment.

But others have pointed to what they call a breakdown in the chain of command, including civilian attorneys for the defendants accused in the 2010 murders, who said higher-ranking officers bore some responsibility for misconduct by their troops. No officers were ever charged in that case.

Four of the accused killers were convicted or pleaded guilty in court-martial proceedings of murder or manslaughter charges and were sentenced to prison. One was found guilty of cutting fingers off corpses as war trophies. Photographs entered as evidence showed several soldiers posed casually with the bloodied bodies of their victims.

Charges were dismissed against a fifth soldier last month, ending an 21-month investigation that grew out of a probe of rampant hashish abuse within the Stryker unit and resulted in seven other soldiers charged with lesser offenses.

In a separate outburst of violence on New Year's Day, an Iraq war veteran from Lewis-McChord, former Army Private Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, shot and killed a National Park Service ranger at Mount Rainier National Park.

Barnes, who apparently suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and was discharged from the Army for misconduct in November 2009, was found drowned in a creek in the park the day after the killing.

US Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, has said that the Army has identified some 285 base hospital patients whose diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder were reversed as they went through a screening process for possible medical retirements.

Last month, PTSD screeners at the hospital, Madigan Army Medical Center, were removed from duty while the Army Medical Command opened an investigation into why the diagnoses were changed, a spokesman for Senator Murray's office confirmed. He said some constituents had complained that at least some of the diagnoses were "inappropriately" overturned.

Afghanistan militants 'attack Kandahar killings site'

Militants in Afghanistan have launched an attack on a government delegation visiting the site where a US soldier killed 16 civilians.

BBC,

13 March, 2012

Two of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brothers and several top security officials were in the delegation in Panjwai in Kandahar province.

Qayum Karzai told Associated Press the delegation was now safe and heading back to Kandahar.

The US soldier said to have carried out Sunday's attacks is under arrest.

The unnamed 38-year-old staff sergeant is being held at an undisclosed location.

'No rush to exits'

A senior Afghan official confirmed to the BBC that an attack "from several directions" had taken place on the delegation, which was there to meet villagers and tribal elders. Afghan forces returned fire.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told Agence France-Presse: "One or more enemy [fighters] were hiding there. When the delegation arrived they fired. One policeman is injured. A search operation is under way."

The US soldier's attack in Kandahar has severely strained relations between Afghans and foreign forces.

Anti-US sentiment was already high after soldiers burned some copies of the Koran at a Nato base in Kabul last month, sparking deadly riots across the country.

On Tuesday morning, some 600 students took part in a rally in the eastern city of Jalalabad, condemning the Kandahar attack and chanting "Death to America! Death to Obama!".

US President Barack Obama said the shooting was "absolutely heartbreaking and tragic".

But he said international forces must be withdrawn from Afghanistan in a responsible way, and would not "rush for the exits".

He said the international forces had to make sure Afghans could secure their borders and stop al-Qaeda from getting back into the country.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the soldier in question could face the death penalty, if found guilty.

The Taliban has renewed threats of revenge attacks, saying it would behead "sadistic" American soldiers.

'Cowered in fear'

Details about Sunday's shootings are still unclear, but the American soldier left his base in Kandahar in the early hours and went on a rampage in nearby villages.

Locals told reporters how they cowered in fear as the man made his way from door to door, trying to get into their houses.

"I saw a man, he dragged a woman by her hair and banged her head repeatedly against the wall. She didn't say a word," one witness said.

He broke into three houses and killed 16 people, most of them women and children. He then burned their bodies, according to reports.

The US defence secretary said the soldier "came back to the forward operating base and basically turned himself in, told individuals what had happened".

Pentagon officials said they would not release his name while the investigation was going on.

Reports said the soldier, who has three children, had been deployed to Afghanistan in December for his first tour of duty there after serving three times in Iraq.