I believe our soldiers are heroes, for fighting when I'm not.

But I wholly agree: this man's hands should be bound behind his back, and he should be delivered in a cart to the local courts. It's the only way to prevent this blowing up in our faces, and I'm depressed that he won't be handed over for fitting punishment.

doglover: Totally not paragon, dude.

That must be a 4e reference, 'cause I don't completely get it.

/ stopped paying attention after 3.5

Satanic_Hamster: Predictions:
Right wing radio hosts and Congressional leaders will declare this guy a hero.
American soldiers will die as a result of this guys actions.
If he gets out of prison, he'll become the next Senator from South Carolina.

Well, your first one is about to come true. Here's a comment from the average Fox News viewer:

"Give the Soldier a MEDAL OF HONOR... that's what he deserves! Pity he didn't take more out when he did."

Clearly this guy is a "dittohead". And the fascist wing of US politics has a tendency to go a wee bit sideways when a symptom of their failed policies explodes in their collective face; they end up whitewashing (and even embracing) the worst behavior.

I think prediction #2 will become manifest by week's end but prediction #3 is probably 15-20 years off. And he'll probably win governor of Idaho or something.

The_Sheriff_Is_A_Niiii: Guess_Who: rev. dave: I would like someone who knows this better than me to give me more information about the culture of deployed troops and their leaders.
Is mental illness still thought of as a character weakness that one must hide or was that never really an issue?
What happens when a well trained combat soldier is left too long with a serious mental illness in the field?

How does one express anger in a healthy way while deployed, healthy means not using violence or weapons as stress relief?

As someone who spent 3 /12 years over there. I can say doing something like what he did was always talked about, just never done. Until now of course. I know what was going on in his head. The district where that happened is full of hardcore Taliban supporters. Sad to see a soldier snap like that.

Finally a somewhat sane comment here.

I agree completely. However this is not unexpected due to the state of affairs over there. From what friends tell me it's not pretty at all.

This same shiat happened in Nam, and it's going to keep happening in Afghanistan. You take sheltered, civilized boys, send them to some unspeakable shiathole full of savages, with vague instructions to intervene in quarrels between those savages, and no achievable objective - and they'll eventually go nuts and start killing every Goddamn thing they see.
Works every time.

SkinnyHead: Dinki: Great. Now Obama will have to offer another apology (which he should), and the wingnuts will roll out their Obama apologizing derp train.

Obama was warned that apologizing the way he did would have a very negative effect on morale. Bad things happen when morale is low like that.

The only thing I will agree with you on is that he shouldn't apologize. He should hand over the soldier to Afghan authorities and put the death penalty by firing squad on the table. The average Afghan will not accept anything less. I don't know how I can emphasize this any more than that. Blood for blood. That's all they understand over there. Either they execute this guy, or the Afghanis will go apeshiat once the news spreads and there will be plenty more violence. The righties are kidding themselves if they think this will just blow over, and the lefties are kidding themselves if empty apologies and military court-martials are going to calm things down.

Bfett20: give him over to the Afghani people. He is no longer deserving of US Justice.

THIS! +11 venty

And don't biatch when they televise the skinning and dis-embowelment.

Real men join the Marine Corpse

This should end well....

Throw him to the wolves.

He was probably offended at something. Apparently, in soth Asia being offended means you can kill someone legally. No problem, next case...

Thanks guys for cheering me up! Husband is over there dealing with the aftermath of the rampage

El Freak: Mrbogey: Satanic_Hamster: Right wing radio hosts and Congressional leaders will declare this guy a hero.

I notice that whenever something bad happens like this the Left starts talking about how much the right-wing must like it. Then when they're shown to be wrong they pretend as if they were right and go about making more equally wrong predictions.

Have you ever stopped to realize that you're as awful as the people you hate and only by a stroke of luck did you end up on the left-wing posting on Fark and not on the right-wing posting on Stormfront?

Based on past experience, he made a pretty logical prediction. I've never met a conservative that didn't mindlessly worship the troops and treat each individual soldier as infallible demigods.Unless, of course, one of those troops turns out to be one of them godless homoqueers or something.

I'm sick of people pretending that there's an equal amount of hate and vitriol coming from the left and the right in this country. There's not. There is nothing, NOTHING, coming from the American left that even approaches the level of hatred and vitriol that the right has been spewing out on a daily basis for the past 20 years or so.

OWS and the anti-war rallies were plenty vitriolic. Half of fark posts and facebook news feeds (both sides) are essentially saying "if you disagree with me, you're an idiot, a monster or ignorant." Of course this isn't true, but most people believe it . Both sides are guilty of demonizing the other side and in equal portions. Both sides may not recognize this because each side feels righteous about their anger.

I hear he has already been contacted by the IDF and offered a job.

If I posted this story to my facebook I'd have 5-6 people, including my sister, tell me that "I've never been over there" and that "I wouldn't understand", and that I'm unamerican for even suggesting that our troops do anything wrong whatsoever.

You should have seen the shiatstorm that erupted when I expressed my outrage and disappointment that Frank Wuterich got away scot free.

Pack of goddamn idiots.

This sounds fishy to me. Either it's a false flag op (the timing is too convenient, coming after the army base shootings) or someone is lying about the women and children. The bodies were supposedly burned and the witnesses give conflicting reports.

The_Sheriff_Is_A_Niiii: Satanic_Hamster: Predictions:
Right wing radio hosts and Congressional leaders will declare this guy a hero.
American soldiers will die as a result of this guys actions.
If he gets out of prison, he'll become the next Senator from South Carolina.

He is a hero, at least in my book.

That's because you're just a filthy jihadist, yourself. You are morally identical to Al Qaeda, to have that attitude. Either we ARE morally better than those slime, which means we are to NEVER act like them or we are free to pull shiat like going from house to house, murdering civilians in some perverted "revenge" fantasy enactment, at which point we are morally identical to the slime in Al Qaeda. Which is it, Buckwheat?

Preserved_Killick: Both sides are guilty of demonizing the other side and in equal portions

Yeah, this is pretty demonstrably false, but whatever helps you feel better about yourself.

nekom: globalwarmingpraiser: Public hanging by the US Military in Afghanistan would be better. It would show the people there that we refuse to allow our men and women to act in such a manner and when found to be acting in that manner they will be punished effectively, and heaped with dishonor.

When's the last time the military executed anyone? Looks like about 1955 from what I can gather. I'm no fan of the death penalty but if they're going to have it, seems to me this would be a good candidate for it.

Ronald Gray was sentenced to death in the early 90's, but has yet to be executed.

Bfett20: give him over to the Afghani people. He is no longer deserving of US Justice.

Agreed.

jehovahs witness protection: The_Sheriff_Is_A_Niiii

Please don't quote that guys garbage. People have that douche on ignore for a reason.

If you're surprised by this you are very young or very naive. This is every war since there was such a thing as war, unless it's fought in a place where the civilians have already all left.

We're lucky in the U.S. we haven't fought a war inside the states in a long time.

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.

Nutsac_Jim: He was probably offended at something. Apparently, in soth Asia being offended means you can kill someone legally. No problem, next case...


I take it you mean South Asia. If so...

South Asia?

Get a map, ffs, western infidel.

nekom: globalwarmingpraiser: Public hanging by the US Military in Afghanistan would be better. It would show the people there that we refuse to allow our men and women to act in such a manner and when found to be acting in that manner they will be punished effectively, and heaped with dishonor.

When's the last time the military executed anyone? Looks like about 1955 from what I can gather. I'm no fan of the death penalty but if they're going to have it, seems to me this would be a good candidate for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_United_States_ m ilitary

Private Ronald Gray has come close more than a few times, last in 2008. He's not a very nice person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_A._Gray

He's gonna have his some fun.

Great_Milenko: This is what people wanted, right? Taking off the gloves and waging real war?

SkinnyHead: Dinki: SkinnyHead: Dinki: Great. Now Obama will have to offer another apology (which he should), and the wingnuts will roll out their Obama apologizing derp train.

Obama was warned that apologizing the way he did would have a very negative effect on morale. Bad things happen when morale is low like that.

So this is Obamas fault. Right.

Was Abu Ghraib Bush's fault?

It's too early to tell whether this is Obama's fault. I'm just saying that apologizing the way he did leads to bad morale, and bad morale can lead to things like this.

So...we shouldn't apologize for doing things, because it might lead to retards doing more things? Does someone have that deep thoughts pic handy?

PonceAlyosha: Preserved_Killick: Both sides are guilty of demonizing the other side and in equal portions

Yeah, this is pretty demonstrably false, but whatever helps you feel better about yourself.

You demonized me to show that your side (don't know what it is) doesn't demonize people that disagree.

Fark_Guy_Rob: Carth: GBB: Carth: 9beers: At least his actions can be explained by mental illness, unlike the Afghans who killed people over their book of fairy tales being burned.

Killing people over make believe sky wizards isn't a mental illness?

Not according to the 90% of the world's population that believes in a sky wizard of some sort.

Is mass delusion classified as a mental illness?

It's pretty strange how we classify 'illness'.

If we accept that 90% of the world now believes in a 'sky wizard' and, historically, that number was even higher; it would be pretty easy to make an argument that people *lacking faith* are the ones suffering from a mental illness.

Normally, it's not enough for something to be 'rare', it isn't an illness unless it puts you at some sort of disadvantage; but I'm pretty sure enough people would argue that lacking a type of religious faith would put you at a disadvantage. I have read studies that found people could tolerate higher levels of pain while saying a prayer than doing most anything else.

Historically speaking, lack of faith was treated as an illness of sorts. Treatment usually involved high levels of pain and death. Sometimes family and friends were also "treated" due to the threat of "infection".

Was only a matter of time before we heard about Westerners in a shiatholeistan going native.

And we already have some soldiers from that rouge unit that were killing civilians for sport on trial.

/time to vote RON PAUL and get the fark out now.

Does this help or hurt his planned career at the Post Office?

Bfett20: give him over to the Afghani people. He is no longer deserving of US Justice.

Sure thing. That's totally a legal standard we want to set. Question, on that note. I'm going to go out on a limb her and say you're either a Christian, Atheist/Agnostic, or Jew. Are you cool with us turning you over to Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, Qatar, or any other country which has a law against apostasy?

RussianPooper: SkinnyHead: Dinki: Great. Now Obama will have to offer another apology (which he should), and the wingnuts will roll out their Obama apologizing derp train.

Obama was warned that apologizing the way he did would have a very negative effect on morale. Bad things happen when morale is low like that.

You must be quite limber, because that is an incredible stretch.

Actually it's not. The rank and file despise Obama and I'm certain that Koran apology didn't help one bit.

GBB: Fark_Guy_Rob: Carth: GBB: Carth: 9beers: At least his actions can be explained by mental illness, unlike the Afghans who killed people over their book of fairy tales being burned.

Killing people over make believe sky wizards isn't a mental illness?

Not according to the 90% of the world's population that believes in a sky wizard of some sort.

Is mass delusion classified as a mental illness?

It's pretty strange how we classify 'illness'.

If we accept that 90% of the world now believes in a 'sky wizard' and, historically, that number was even higher; it would be pretty easy to make an argument that people *lacking faith* are the ones suffering from a mental illness.

Normally, it's not enough for something to be 'rare', it isn't an illness unless it puts you at some sort of disadvantage; but I'm pretty sure enough people would argue that lacking a type of religious faith would put you at a disadvantage. I have read studies that found people could tolerate higher levels of pain while saying a prayer than doing most anything else.

Historically speaking, lack of faith was treated as an illness of sorts. Treatment usually involved high levels of pain and death. Sometimes family and friends were also "treated" due to the threat of "infection".

Sounds more like how believers were treated in 1930's USSR or Mao's China. More recent too.

Mugato: I realize what this guy did is not the same as lobbing missiles into an area knowing with 100% assurance that civilians will be killed but the results are the same.

What does Hamas have to do with this?

Igor Jakovsky: And we already have some soldiers from that rouge unit that were killing civilians for sport on trial.

/time to vote RON PAUL and get the fark out now.

There, fixed that for you. Bolded for emphasis.

People who think they'll be electing King Emperor Lord High Ron Paul the First of the United States, who will magically execute his will to fix all problems, domestic and foreign, and create a land of magical sunshine and candy-smelling farts are both deluded and ignorant of the three branches of the Federal Government, as well as just as annoying as the right-wing theocrats who blame Gays and the Mooslems for every street light that blows a bulb.