US private gets 6-yr. jail term for raping South Korean girl (PressTV)

PressTV
Wed May 9, 2012

A South Korean court has sentenced a US trooper to six years in prison for raping a teenage South Korean girl last year.

Image property of PressTV

On Wednesday, the Seoul Central District Court found 21-year-old Private Kevin Robinson guilty of raping a 17-year-old girl at her home in the country’s capital last September, AFP reported.

According to the court, the private and the teenage girl had been drinking together earlier, making it possible for the trooper to take advantage of her.

The case follows the sentencing of another US troop to 10 years in prison in November for brutally raping another South Korean teenager in the Dongducheon city, which is situated to the north of Seoul.

About 28,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea and the crimes they commit have turned into a sensitive subject in the East Asian nation.

Several major anti-US demonstrations have been held in South Korea to protest the presence of the American troops there.

MHB/AS/HN

Another U.S. military scandal...Soldiers 'posed' with dead Afghan bombers

U.S. troops posed with body parts of Afghan bombers
An American soldier says he released the photos to the Los Angeles Times to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline. The Army has started a criminal investigation.

By David Zucchino,
Los Angeles Times
April 18, 2012, 4:30 a.m.

A soldier from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division with the body of an Afghan insurgent killed while trying to plant a roadside bomb. The photo is one of 18 provided to The Times of U.S. soldiers posing with corpses. Photo credit: LA Times

[...]

The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan's Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse's severed legs.

• U.S. prepares for 'violent backlash' in Afghanistan after photos of American soldiers posing with bodies of suicide bombers sparks outrage

A few months later, the same platoon was dispatched to investigate the remains of three insurgents who Afghan police said had accidentally blown themselves up. After obtaining a few fingerprints, they posed next to the remains, again grinning and mugging for photographs.

Two soldiers posed holding a dead man's hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man's hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading "Zombie Hunter" next to other remains and took a picture.

The Army launched a criminal investigation after the Los Angeles Times showed officials copies of the photos, which recently were given to the paper by a soldier from the division.

"It is a violation of Army standards to pose with corpses for photographs outside of officially sanctioned purposes," said George Wright, an Army spokesman. "Such actions fall short of what we expect of our uniformed service members in deployed areas."

Wright said that after the investigation, the Army would "take appropriate action" against those involved. Most of the soldiers in the photos have been identified, said Lt. Col. Margaret Kageleiry, an Army spokeswoman.

The photos have emerged at a particularly sensitive moment for U.S.-Afghan relations. In January, a video appeared on the Internet showing four U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a U.S. base triggered riots that left 30 dead and led to the deaths of six Americans. In March, a U.S. Army sergeant went on a nighttime shooting rampage in two Afghan villages, killing 17.

The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity. He served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C. He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.

He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated. The brigade, under new command but with some of the same paratroopers who served in 2010, began another tour in Afghanistan in February...

(click here to read the full article)

The Kandahar Massacre

The Kandahar massacre

By: M A Niazi
The Nation
March 16, 2012

Pakistanis were not very surprised when an American soldier ran amuck in Kandahar and shot up 16 Afghan civilians, which came hot on the heels of another incident of American callousness in Afghanistan, i.e. the burning of copies of Holy Quran at the Bagram Airbase. Just as Pakistan had experienced the Raymond Davis affair, in which a CIA contractor had shot two Pakistanis, with his rescue vehicle running down a third, and had thus learned the hard way that CIA contractors were not benign presences who could be given the free run of the country, so have the Afghans learnt at the cost of massacre in Kandahar and the cost of being occupied by the USA. The common aspect of both incidents is that Washington’s dirty little secret is out!

If Europe sent its ‘remittance men’ out to the colonies, the USA is sending out those murderous offenders who, if kept in the country, would soon spray either the children at a school, or colleagues at a workplace, with bullets. It is an unfortunate truth that in a culture that glorifies violence, the armed forces attract the very kind of persons prone to such sudden outbursts. They are not many, and military discipline normally controls them, but under the sort of pressure that Afghanistan is providing for the US army or Pakistan for CIA contractors, such incidents are bound to happen.

One major source of pressure is that the USA is facing is that of defeat. Obviously, the agencies present in the theatre will have personnel, whose careers will thus be negatively impacted. Now CIA contractors and enlisted army personnel would seem to be out of this pressure, but they would be under the supervision of career-track officers who would exert their own kind of pressures, themselves feeling the pressure that is generated by impending defeat.
The Nato forces would contain similar misfits, liable to go off the rails, as has been shown by the desecration of opponents’ bodies and the subsequent photographing. As the Americans have been successful, and as they share a common origin with the USA, European armies, too, have accepted in their ranks those who are not very stable.

Another factor is that the military is not like civilian life, where murderous tendencies are severely suppressed, even on the penalty of loss of life. The military trains people to kill, and going into combat means killing others. For Muslims, this constitutes a religious duty, but for Europeans, either there must be continuous reinforcement of the lesson (that killing is ‘OK’), or the barriers must already be weak. There is none of the holy war feeling in European armies, which must rely instead on professionalism, and group feeling, to make people kill others. Of course, something may go wrong, and some soldiers, or one or the other, may lose the inhibitions too much, enough to run amuck.

There is an inherent problem with American culture that is avowedly civilian, and that also glorifies the gun culture, which is guaranteed by the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms. A recurring American theme is that of the heavily-armed vigilante, who shoots up the ‘bad guys’, suitably dehumanised by being given comic-book names, from the ‘injun’, the native American, brutally massacred during the Indian wars of the 19th century, to the ‘jerry’, ‘jap’, ‘chink’ and ‘gook’ (Germans, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese, the latter two from the Korean and Vietnam wars) of the 20th century.

This makes sense not just of the My Lai massacres, in which American troops slaughtered Vietnamese villagers, but of the massacres in Iraq that also learnt the cost of being occupied by the USA, as well as of the non-US, Nato massacres in Afghanistan, carried out by forces under American influence, even before the close contact produced by joint operations together. There were two massacres by US forces in Haditha during the occupation. The first was in 2005, in which US marines killed 24 and then Blackwater military contractors killed 17 people in 2007. Almost as if in a rehearsal for Salalah, an Apache helicopter crew killed 12 in Baghdad in the same year. These killings, My Lai, Haditha, Kandahar, all took place under occupation, and indicate the nature of American occupation: It is not just neo-colonial, but it is staffed by violent people.

The first sergeant, who committed the Kandahar massacre, has been identified as providing support for a Green Beret or SEAL unit of the Special Operations Command. Special operations have a tendency to be more attractive for the more physical of those with disturbances, as such units are not only more challenging, but they also provide the best opportunities of violence. The USA, which has the best documented evidence of problems with its elite forces, plans to enhance their role. Thus, Pakistan has a virtual guarantee of further trouble if it continues its alliance. Though not under physical occupation, its closeness to the main theatre of operations, combined with its close alliance with the USA, has meant frequent comparisons have been drawn with Cambodia, but one effect that Pakistan has experienced has been that of undergoing periodic massacres. Because this does not affect the ruling class, there is a desire to cosy up to the USA nonetheless. However, there will be more such massacres, because the American personnel coming here are products of their culture.
There have been protests in Afghanistan against both the Quran burnings and the Kandahar killings, and the killings are just more proof that the American occupation is a burden. There have been three consequences:

First, these incidents are making it more difficult for the USA to get the kind of Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) from Afghanistan that they want. The SOFA is going to govern the role of US forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014, when it is scheduled to leave. Interestingly, the USA would like to use more of the Special Forces that the murderous soldier belongs to, in that SOFA.

Second, the incident has caused voices to be raised in the USA for an earlier withdrawal of troops. Thus, indicating that anti-war sentiment is so high that any bad news, even if it is, as in this case, not a military reverse, will serve as an excuse to pack up and get out.
Third, it is an election year, and such incidents are not going to increase the re-election chances of President Barack Obama.

The main thing for Pakistan is to notice that such incidents have parallels to what the USA has done in the country. While Islamabad is heading to a reset of relations with Washington, which implies that the Nato land route for supplies through Pakistan is to be restored, there is nothing to stop the USA from being its usual, gung-ho, cowboyish self, and incidentally killing Pakistanis. There should be no dealing with the USA. That has cost both Afghanistan and Pakistan dearly.

The writer is a veteran journalist and founding member as well as Executive Editor of TheNation.

Email: maniazi@nation.com.pk

Afghan civilian bodies burnt after shooting spree by US soldier

‘US forces burned bodies of Afghans after massacre’
Press TV
Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:46AM GMT

Afghan eyewitnesses say US troopers have burnt nearly a dozen bodies of the Afghan victims, whom American servicemen had killed during an earlier massacre.

UPDATED:'Several drunk troops behind bloodbath, laughed on shooting-spree, burned corpses'
Original story: US Soldier goes on a killing spree, just what is going on in Afghanistan? (WARNING: Graphic images)

A mourner cries over the bodies of the Afghan civilians, shot by US forces, in the Alkozai village in Kandahar Province in southeastern Afghanistan on March 11, 2012. Image: Press TV

Early Sunday, US forces opened fire on Afghan civilians inside their homes in the district of Panjwaii in the southern province of Kandahar, killing at least 17 civilians and injuring several others. The Taliban militants said at least 50 people were killed in the massacre.

Earlier reports said the assassin was a lone US sergeant.

Villagers said the US forces later collected 11 of the bodies, including those of four girls under the age of six, and set them on fire.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the bloodshed, calling it an inhuman, intentional, and unforgiveable act.

• Afghan MPs call for public trial of US forces involved in Afghan massacre
• Pentagon rebuffs Afghan trial in shooting spree
• Taliban vow revenge against US troops for murdering Afghans
• US offers condolence over killing Afghan civilians

“When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces, this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action," Karzai said in a statement.

"The government and the people of Afghanistan demand an explanation from the United States government of this incident."

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan have been a major source of tension between Kabul and Washington.

The outrages came in the wake of violent clashes in several Afghan provinces over recent desecration of the Holy Qur’an by the United States forces at the US-run Bagram Airbase in the province of Parwan in northeastern Afghanistan. The violence left over 30 people, including six American forces, dead and around 180 others injured.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan was launched in 2001. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues to rise across the country, despite the presence there of tens of thousands of US-led troops.

GJH/MF/HN

Additional Info:

• Afghan civilian murders by US Forces story continued...
• US Soldier goes on a killing spree, just what is going on in Afghanistan? (WARNING: Graphic images)

Afghan civilian murders by US Forces story continued...

Taliban vows revenge against US forces over Afghan civilian murders
NEWSCORE/NEW YORK POST
Last Updated: 9:28 AM, March 12, 2012

UPDATE: Pentagon rebuffs Afghan trial in shooting spree


KABUL -- Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents vowed revenge Monday against "sick-minded American savages" after a US soldier killed 16 villagers in their homes, while the Afghan parliament demanded the perpetrator be put on public trial in the country.

The Taliban would "take revenge from the invaders and the savage murderers for every single martyr," the hardline Islamist group said in a statement on their website.

...Karzai reacted with anger to the incident, saying, "When the Americans are killing civilians intentionally, this is called terror and it is an unforgivable act."
Obama called Karzai on Sunday to personally express his "shock and sadness" at the incident.
"I am deeply saddened by the reported killing and wounding of Afghan civilians," Obama said in a statement. "I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering."
...

(click here to read the full article)

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/taliban_vows_revenge_against_us_eM2vmql8IoZbudcJG2KdsK#ixzz1ouaCjV1r

• American soldier has a 'breakdown' and shoots nine children dead in their sleep in house-to-house shooting rampage in Afghanistan that killed 16 civilians - Original story; WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES

US Soldier goes on a killing spree, just what is going on in Afghanistan? (WARNING: Graphic images)

American soldier has a 'breakdown' and shoots nine children dead in their sleep in house-to-house shooting rampage in Afghanistan that killed 16 civilians

Daily Mail
By BETH STEBNER
PUBLISHED: 08:54 EST, 11 March 2012 | UPDATED: 20:07 EST, 11 March 2012

• Shooter identified as Army staff sergeant from Fort Lewis, Washington
• Base regarded as 'most troubled in the military,' that housed soldiers involved in Afghan 'thrill killings' case in 2010
• Assigned to support a special operations unit of either Green Berets or Navy SEALs
• He allegedly went into three homes early this morning and shot dead 16 people after 'suffering mental breakdown'
• Nine children and three women among those reported dead
• Relative said he 'poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them'
• Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned shootings as 'assassination'
• President Obama called attack 'tragic' and 'shocking'
• Attack could deepen strife and comes weeks after outrage over Koran burning at NATO base left at least 30 dead
• Afghan Taliban said in email they are likely to retaliate

Sixteen innocent Afghan civilians - including nine children and three women - were shot and killed by a rogue U.S. soldier who opened fire after suffering a 'mental breakdown' early this morning.

The Army staff sergeant, who was stationed at a U.S. base in Kandahar, reportedly entered three Afghan family’s homes around 3am this morning and began the killing spree. A relative of the deceased added that he then 'poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them.'
The shooter was identified by U.S. officials as an Army staff sergeant from Fort Lewis, Washington, who was believed to have acted alone.

Initial reports indicated he returned to the base after the shooting, turned himself in and was taken into custody at a NATO base in Afghanistan.

Disbelief: Two grief-stricken Afghan men look into the van where the body of a badly burned child lays, wrapped in a blue blanket.

(click here to read full article and view images, video WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2113410/US-soldier-shoots-dead-16-Afghan-civilians-house-house-shooting-spree-suffering-mental-breakdown.html#ixzz1orsmKp5c