Afghanistan "Kill Teams": Uh Oh...

[NorthwestUteFan]

Good points, thank you. I share many of your libertarian tendencies.

My friend's older brother got heavily involved with the Zapatista movement. He knew Zack de la Rocha (of Rage) personally. Zach's wife or gf was from SLC, so he was around town fairly often.

He even went down to Chiapas for a year or so in the mid '90s. According to my friend, the older brother came to realize that often the Zapatistas were as bad to the people of the small villages as the Mexican government was, but he bought in to the rhetoric and believed all bad things are made valid if they further the cause of 'the movement'.

I hoped to ask him about his experiences when he returned, but I didn't see him again until ten years after and forgot to ask about his experiences. He is living in some self-supporting organic farm/nudist commune in Oregon last I heard.

In short, the 'new school' isn't always better than the 'old school', but sometimes the transition is a risk worth taking.

[RobinFinderson]

Rolling Stone has the expose on this 'Kill Team' fiasco. This thing could be as explosive as Abu Ghraib. It is just sickening.

The article contains some uncensored photos and videos. You can see a bit of them in the thumbnails of the linked article, but the most horrific of those images require a couple of additional clicks. After looking at them, I wish I hadn't.

[wuapinmon]

Yup, the winner usually writes the history. Being a child of the South, you certainly know that very well. (My Dad is from Atlanta)

off topic: Did you finish your critique of the Che book? I read the first installments a few months ago with great interest.

No, no one seemed interested, and I was teaching two night classes when I finished it.

[wuapinmon]

Rolling Stone has the expose on this 'Kill Team' fiasco. This thing could be as explosive as Abu Ghraib. It is just sickening.

The article contains some uncensored photos and videos. You can see a bit of them in the thumbnails of the linked article, but the most horrific of those images require a couple of additional clicks. After looking at them, I wish I hadn't.

FTA

But discretion wasn't exactly the unit's strong suit. By the next day, everyone knew that Stoner had ratted them out. "Everyone began to panic," Quintal recalls. Gibbs, who didn't care for hashish, gathered members of the kill team in his room. "We need to address the situation with Stoner," he reportedly said. "Snitches get stitches."

Yet again, we see the mentality of the people who utter this bullshit. Anyone who says this, and means it, is a fucking detriment.

I can't believe that those guys are only getting jail time. Those are capital cases if I've ever heard them.

[Coach McGuirk]

Rolling Stone has the expose on this 'Kill Team' fiasco. This thing could be as explosive as Abu Ghraib. It is just sickening.

The article contains some uncensored photos and videos. You can see a bit of them in the thumbnails of the linked article, but the most horrific of those images require a couple of additional clicks. After looking at them, I wish I hadn't.

all involved should be hanged if found guilty. Unacceptable and despicable.

[Pheidippides]

all involved should be hanged if found guilty. Unacceptable and despicable.

I am fiercely anti capital punishment. But war is different. If they are guilty, hang the bastards.

[RobinFinderson]

A shameful bit of info... Gibbs, one of the unit's staff sergeants, and purported ringleader of the gunmen, was LDS:

At six-feet-four and 220 pounds, Gibbs could certainly intimidate those around him. Growing up in a devout Mormon family in Billings, Montana, he had dropped out of high school to get an equivalency degree and enlist in the Army. He plunged into soldiering, accumulating a slew of medals in Iraq, where the line between legitimate self-defense and civilian deaths was often blurry at best. In 2004, Gibbs and other soldiers allegedly fired on an unarmed Iraqi family near Kirkuk, killing two adults and a child. The incident, which was not prosecuted at the time, is now under investigation by the Army.

[Donuthole]

A shameful bit of info... Gibbs, one of the unit's staff sergeants, and purported ringleader of the gunmen, was LDS:

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times: never ever trust anyone with both Montana and LDS ties/roots. It's a bad mix.

[falafel]

I am fiercely anti capital punishment. But war is different. If they are guilty, hang the bastards.

I'm not sure how you can differentiate. If one can do something so horrible during war so as to permit the use of capital punishment, certainly there are equally horrible things that can be done outside of the war context. .

Seems to me you have to be either for or against. Your threshold for applying the death penalty is an entirely separate question.

[Pheidippides]

I'm not sure how you can differentiate. If one can do something so horrible during war so as to permit the use of capital punishment, certainly there are equally horrible things that can be done outside of the war context. .

Seems to me you have to be either for or against. Your threshold for applying the death penalty is an entirely separate question.

Well, it's not your opinion, so you don't have to be sure how to differentiate.

[RobinFinderson]

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times: never ever trust anyone with both Montana and LDS ties/roots. It's a bad mix.

Billings seems to be a natural shit-collecting city, where violent rednecks, meth-heads, biker gangs, and white supremacists gather to reproduce. Don't judge Montana by the people of Billings. That would be like judging all Mormons based on what goes down in Tooele.

[wuapinmon]

I'm not sure how you can differentiate. If one can do something so horrible during war so as to permit the use of capital punishment, certainly there are equally horrible things that can be done outside of the war context. .

Seems to me you have to be either for or against. Your threshold for applying the death penalty is an entirely separate question.

Well, it's not your opinion, so you don't have to be sure how to differentiate.

Well, I think nikuman has embraced that same sort of thinking that describes France's view on capital punishment; abolished, save for high treason.

I am not opposed to the death penalty because I feel that there are some crimes that merit it, regardless of costs or humanists appeals. Raping and murdering a child being #1 in my book. I don't view it as a deterrent; it is justice. It won't bring that person back, it might not bring closure, but, it's better that a millstone be tied around the neck of someone who hurts a child.

[Pheidippides]

Well, I think nikuman has embraced that same sort of thinking that describes France's view on capital punishment; abolished, save for high treason.

I am not opposed to the death penalty because I feel that there are some crimes that merit it, regardless of costs or humanists appeals. Raping and murdering a child being #1 in my book. I don't view it as a deterrent; it is justice. It won't bring that person back, it might not bring closure, but, it's better that a millstone be tied around the neck of someone who hurts a child.

Not quite; you've missed the mark. In war, we've basically legalized an legitimized the murder of other humans within certain parameters. Because that power is given, the punishment has to be correspondingly terrifiying (for lack of a better word).

[wuapinmon]

Not quite; you've missed the mark. In war, we've basically legalized an legitimized the murder of other humans within certain parameters. Because that power is given, the punishment has to be correspondingly terrifiying (for lack of a better word).

I see your point.

[woot]

Well, I think nikuman has embraced that same sort of thinking that describes France's view on capital punishment; abolished, save for high treason.

I am not opposed to the death penalty because I feel that there are some crimes that merit it, regardless of costs or humanists appeals. Raping and murdering a child being #1 in my book. I don't view it as a deterrent; it is justice. It won't bring that person back, it might not bring closure, but, it's better that a millstone be tied around the neck of someone who hurts a child.

What if the person who raped and murdered the child is mentally retarded, or seems normal but actually has severe damage to the portion of the brain that controls violent impulses? Clinton executed a retarded black man during his presidency for political reasons despite public outcry, and the more I read about it, the more it seems that a very large number of those who commit murder have brain damage.

The problem often seems to be that we are judging others by our own standards. "I would never kill someone/treat someone that way/take drugs/gamble..." so therefore no one else should feel the desire to do so either.

It's a hard question, and certainly those who pose a risk to society should be removed from it, but is killing someone who doesn't have the capacity to understand what they did, or who at least has a much higher degree of difficulty in controlling their behavior, really the answer? Is that really justice?