Understanding the Afghan Massacre
 

An American soldier (a staff sergeant) wandered off his base to two nearby villages and massacred 16 Afghan civilians. Nine of them were children sleeping in their beds.

In my opinion, it's pretty obvious that he's suffering from dementia. Otherwise, where is his motive? Has any been suggested?

He served three tours of duty in Iraq, and prolonged stress can cause vascular dementia. He also received a traumatic brain injury which could have been a trigger for early onset Alzheimer's disease. And it's possible to have both vascular dementia and Alzheimer's at the same time.

It's telling that it happened at night, which leads me to the following theory. 1) he went to sleep as usual 2) he began to dream 3) he then got up, as if in a state of sleep-walking and 4) it was in this altered trance-like mental state that he carried out the massacre.

Most of us know when we've had a bad dream. But it's possible that someone with dementia and/or brain injury might not know the difference between a wakeful state and a dream state. So, that means "waking up" can be a continuation of the dream or nightmare state of mind.

The political angle: If my theory proves to be true, will the U.S. military (or civilian court) see it and excuse him from any punishment? Or, will they sacrifice him (execute him) to satisfy the Afghans?

I also heard on the news that alcohol could have been involved as well as a "Dear John" letter from his wife recently.

In my opinion, psychiatric evaluation of this man will reveal he did not commit murder in first degree but probably should be remanded to a psychiatric facility for a long number of years with treatment given.

No way will he be handed over to Afghans for their retribution.

Will the Afghans understand such a theory? Just wondering as I do not know anything about the science/art of psychiatry as it exists in Afghanistan. From what I have read of the country-- and that's very little-- it looks like a tribal society existing in a 21st century world.

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/afghanistan.htm
https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/af.html

This link has a lot of information about Afghanistan:
http://www.afg-info.com/

This soldier went specifically to this village and shot up residents and even set some on fire, and then went back to his camp, put down his weapon and surrendered.
Sounds pretty lucid to me. I don't buy many psychiatric defenses. I would say it sounds pretty evident he's guilty. Is he a little deranged? Maybe, but it's no excuse in my book. He purposely went out and shot women and children.

Nobody is more pro-military than I, but this is inexcusable if the initial stories are very close to the truth of this horror.

Unless there is a lot of information about this man who did all the killings I too find it hard to swallow any kind of insanity defense. Doubt if many people in Afghanistan would even believe in such a defense unless say the Koran or Islamic law covers such ideas??

I am not that knowledgeable about Islamic law to know about the insanity defense in their legal system. It does look like it shows up in Iraqi law but do not know about Afghan law.

I read that he went to two different villages. Why two? Couldn't he find enough people to kill in one village? And why kill women and children? And why burn the bodies? What was that supposed to accomplish?

If he was lucid what was the point of it all? What was his motive? Did he think, "hey, I'll go out and kill a bunch of people and then get exicuted for murder?" Sure, that sounds like a good plan.

How would the story have to be different in order for you to accept that he wasn't in control of what he did?

The only part that doesn't seem to fit my theory is the part about him surrendering. But it could be that by the time he walked back, he began to snap out of it.

It doesn't matter what his emotional state was. Most people who commit murder do so under some sort of stress.

Now it turns out the "brain injury" story was a bit bogus and this soldier had "been drinking" and suffering "from the stress related to his fourth combat tour and tensions with his wife about the deployments, a senior American official said Thursday", as reported in the NY Times.

It's a sad story, but a soldier in this theater cannot be excused from actions like this because that would send an "anything goes" message to the thousands of soldiers with similar situations, in my opinion.

There is a big difference between a REASON (explaining perhaps why someone did something) and an EXCUSE (meaning the person wasn't entirely responsible).

I'm with Richie on this one.

Wondering where the trial would take place??

Would this be a military tribunal on Afghan soil but with civilian and military lawyers for the defense?

Which law comes into play?? Afghan? U.S. Military? Federal Criminal?

He's already been whisked from Afghanistan and is in Kuwait. I don't think he'll be put in Afghan hands. It will be a military trial, I'm sure.

He's on his way to a US military prison, probably Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I heard today, Friday.

Imagine an Afghan came to one of the villages here and shot 16 people and then set some ablaze...Then imagine what the reaction would be,....Enough said

But, Rubicon, the Afghans are not an occupying force in this country.

"occupying force"...........you mean we've been there against the will of the Afghan government??

Is this what you're saying??

You have no shame if you deliver this anti-American b.s.

Unbelievable, Buggy.