You never disappoint.

The Col. John Chivington strategy?

No thanks.

There’s a big difference between actual collateral damage (which was huge in WWII) and the deliberate targeting of non-combatants as a policy. Our enemies do the latter routinely.

(removed picture. May be copyright issues)

The only way to deal with the folks in Afghanistan is with a black flag operation. Send in the Sardaukar, and remove any critter walking on two legs.

The liberal approach to war, i.e. “hearts and minds”, has proven itself to be a complete failure for the past 50 years. The last war we won was when we went in a totally crushed all who stood in our way.

At this time, Nidal Hasan’s trial start has been delayed until June.

I’m not sure what would be improved for Afghan civilians by removing the United States from the picture. This happened just last Thursday, and far from uncommon.

U.N. civilian casualty report here. The executive summary (with charts) starts on page 1, some ways into the report.

Lt. Calley got 3.5 years of house arrest for the massacre of 347 Vietnamese. If one reads the history one can feel a good deal of sympathy for Calley, a weak person feeling pressure from above and below, over his head, friends dying and feeling the scorn and derision of his superiors. A pathetic man in an emotional vise.

And the enormity of his crime indicates he should have been shot. Period.

What is justice in this case? I don’t know, but I know it won’t be done. I think an Afghani court would come closest. One cannot massacre 16 people like that no matter what the circumstances.

Let’s see what the US does to the Major in the Fort Hood shooting, where he killed 13 Americans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

No one ever believed that “freedom and self-government” propaganda bullshit. Of course, its an occupied country.

Oh yeah, it would have been great if we could have left a fully functioning ally and bulwark against terrorism when we left, but it ain’t gonna work for us there any more than it did in Iraq. The Russians learned the same lesson there we failed to learn in Viet Nam, and we obviously learned nothing from their failure.

Maybe it worked for us in Japan and Germany, but there is no historical precedent that says it has to work again anywhere else.

On the other hand, I may be a sentimental fool, but even though I know few details about this case, I believe this soldier is not a vicious monster, I really think he is a victim of psychological trauma, and an Afghani court would not give him justice.

Not that I blame them.

Still, the reaction of the Afghanis is perfectly understandable, even if it is deliberately fanned by the bad guys. They simply don’t want us there any more.

The hidden story here is why are we sending a man with this much combat in so short a time, and with a part of his foot missing (from a previous injury) into combat? Don’t soldiers, more than anything, need to be able to march?

BY itself, an incident like this means little, in context with all the reports of abuse of civilians, PTSD cases, multiple duty tours, breakup of military families, suicides, high unemployment for returning vets, and rape of female soldiers, suggests we are pushing the armed forces too hard and they are starting to unravel.

This is not a war of national survival. We need to get out of there now. I realize we have to disentangle ourselves gradually so we don’t “lose face”, but this essentially political consideration is rapidly becoming unacceptable.

The circumstances around the shootings are brow-raising at the very least. A man with no apparent previous history of conflicts goes off on a brutal rampage, then calmly turns himself in to US authorities explaining what happened. Not Afghan, US.

My conspiracy sense tells me something is missing here. Nothing big, but still missing.