US Soldier Kills 16 - Where Should He Face Trial?

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A very shocking crime, just wondering on your thoughts as to where this person should be held and tried?

Do you think the American government will hand him over or whisk him away to the states for trial?

Of course he will be brought back to the states, he is a soldier. The govt would not hand over one of their own under these circumstances. I dont think at least.

Article 118 of the ucmj, he will either get the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Its Typical story, back to usa and punishment will be a joke

lol

Hilarious joke.

It's not a joke because he won't be punished, it's a joke because it's outrageous to the local people that as far as they can or will see, nothing will happen to him.


It's upsetting because it will show again that despite committing mass murder he is immune to local laws because he is a US service member. Nevermind he was off duty when he killed them.

The rest of the world has to abide by local customs and laws when overseas or face the local punishment but this scumbag while still being punished for it will either serve his time or be executed in a jail that is like the Hilton compared to what he would face in Afghanistan.

lol

Do you really think he will get a fair trial in Afghanistan? Because I sure as hell don't believe he will. What if he snapped? What if he had a complete mental breakdown? The stress and pressure on all foreign service members in a country like that, can be quite inhuman. And we don't know anything at all about what this guy may have witnessed/experienced while he's been there. Do you think the Afghan authorities will take that into consideration at all? I sure don't believe they will.

I don't think anyone deserves a fair trial if they murder children. But that's just my opinion.

good thing it's not up to you then.

edit: read op article:

Nato treaty states that criminals will be tried in their home nations, end of story.

It's not like he is saying he didnt kill those 11 people, he did go back and confess after all so I don't think it's really a question of a fair trial.


The fact is he killed 11 people, including children, confessed to killing them but now is exempt from local law because he is the US army.

Say a Afghan came to Amercia and shot 11 people including kids and was then taken out of the country to face his local Afghan laws, which views some murder as ok and he stood a chance at getting a much lighter sentence than American law would enforce, would you be happy?

Then tell me this. Would you rather shoot children that have bombs on them or you die with your friends. They dont play the same game as we do. Infact we should have never went over there. We have problems at home thats more important. Im not saying its right to shoot anyone. They just have been raised that way or forced to do it.

Oh please, Guantanamo bay shows just how much the American Military cares for such things provided it does not include Americans.

Urgh show me proof that he acted in self defence against these 11 people and I will agree with you.

there isn't a treaty binding the US to not try their citizens here, the same cannot be said for Afghanistan.

Happy or not that's the legal binding between countries, blame the leaders who agreed to the terms.

those are the laws, just because they've broken them before doesn't mean they should keep breaking them.

Moonwalkerv have you ever been in war??? My family has been in the military and I know what crap they go thru. My grandfather had mustergas or whatever you want to call it on him. It messed him up so bad he died at a early age due to health problems from it. If this person snapped or shoot these people he must have had a reason.

not always but I understand your point.

Also it's called mustard gas, not that hard...

In war over there that is 11 less potential suicide bombers. He probably saved countless lives. Might have snapped and believed that. Never know.



lol@mustergas

Wow, really? I actually feel dumber for acknowledging these posts.

There is so much wrong here, that hasn't even been mentioned. What this man did is unacceptable behavior for our military personnel. Regardless of what horrors or tragedies this man has faced nothing excuses his actions. He killed 11 people in one home alone. He executed 3 kids with a single gun shot to the head. What about the other 6 kids he killed? You read that correctly, 9 total kids killed. I either missed it or the article failed to mention how many total people this solider killed. He went into three houses though. If he killed 11 in one house and we know he killed 9 children total its hard to imagine what his total is.

The murder's were not bad enough, what do you think this will do to affect the rest of our troops or innocent US citizens who may be in Afghan. For example those who work in the embassy or the media. We are not looking at an uproar from the Taliban, but the country as a whole. Any US soldier or citizen that is harmed as a result of this mans actions are his fault alone. He should be held accountable for those as well.

Not to mention how his actions now reflect the rest of the military. Our military catches enough heat and lack of respect without a soldier going out and doing something like this. As far as where he should be held for trial, I honestly don't know. As dishonorable as his actions are, I would assume he has served well if he was on his fourth tour. Regardless of where he is held on trial I honestly feel that the death penalty is the only sentence he deserves.

I don't care what you have seen or done there is no reason to kill 9 innocent children. Not to mention however many other innocent victims this man killed. Nothing is worth the possible violence that is sure to befall the rest of our troops and citizens located in Afghan.

After rereading the article, States that 16 total were killed. Looks like 5 others injured. 9 of the 16 dead are children.

I don't think you can compare a random civilian commiting murder in a foreign country, to a case like this one. The men and women serving their country in Afghanistan, risk their lives on a daily basis. Some will witness friends die to bombs and bullets. The mental stress is immense. Don't you think there's a chance that someone living under these conditions can just snap? The vast majority won't, but a large part of them will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, maybe for the rest of their lives. I'm just saying we don't know why this man did what he did.

I will admit though, if he did kill these people in cold blood, then that's horrible beyond words and he deserves what he gets. But in my humble opinion, under those circumstances he is the responsibility of the US/US armed forces.

You must be, considering you probably raged and stopped reading before you read my whole post.

In my experience the military will tend to hand them over for punishment in the other nations prison system, and then bring them back to ours later on. I am basing this on 2 cases that happened on my ship when I was stationed in Japan.

In one case a young man murdered an elderly Japanese woman, he was handed over and will serve a life time in Japanese prison, should he ever get out for some reason he will then be tried by the US military under UCMJ, discharged, and then tried under a civilian court. This is how the Commanding Officer and Legal Officer onboard explained it to the crew.

In the second case an Officer beat the hell out of a Chinese taxi-driver and was arrested. We handed him over when the police came for him and he was given 10 years in a Chinese jail, after that the same thing will go down as the previous guy.

I can't say for sure in this other case, I think it comes down to relations and how upset the host nation is about it. If it comes down to saving face for the country they will most likely hand him over for punishment first.

This is one of those things that if every detail of the story was the same, except that he was to be tried by local laws, there would be just as much outrage. There's not a win here. If you don't like it, you can deal with it. If you can't deal with it, really, I've gotta say that it's absolutely not unexpected - and that every single day before this was an opportunity to do something about it.

The fact of the matter is that there is a fundamental difference between a service member serving overseas and say, a tourist. Good, bad, otherwise, that guy went over there on behalf of the government to wage a war. If he cannot be protected by our laws in a situation like this,* then that's pretty shameful.

Really, though, just imagine if someone else had been accused of the same crime, except there was no confession, and all of the witnesses were Afghani. Should we just subject that person to local laws and customs as well?

for starters we don't know the circumstances as we weren't there.

secondly you obviously haven't ever been traumatized to the point of insanity nor have ever witnessed it.

The death penalty is stupid, and if you want more elaboration on that go dig up one of the probably dozen threads on it.

we don't know if these people were innocent civilian or not, so don't make that assumption as we don't know..

The US policy with Japan and Afghanistan are severely different.

Wow at the amount of idiotic comments on a simple topic. I think the OP was meaning to bring out dumba$$es on this one. The dude's going to prison for life IF he doesn't get lethal injection. Military courts are no joke and their not as convoluted as civilian courts. He wasn't off duty...we're NEVER off duty...we're not cops. At least in Guantanamo we don't cut off the prisoner's heads and post it on the internet. C'mon...

And the US Government would trust the Japanese Government to offer a real trial, rather than a bunch of dirka dirkas deciding who cuts off his head first.