U.S. troops face punishment over Koran burning, urination video

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

U.S. troops face punishment over Koran burning, urination video
Reuters – 24 mins ago.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is expected to announce disciplinary action on Monday in response to two incidents that provoked outrage in Afghanistan early this year, one over a video depicting Marines urinating on corpses and another involving burning copies of the Koran, U.S. officials said.

The Army was expected to announce that six soldiers would receive administrative punishments over an incident in which copies of the Koran and other religious material were removed from a prison library and sent to an incinerator to be destroyed, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

The incident in February touched off several days of rioting and attacks on U.S. troops after local workers found charred copies of the Koran among the trash at the incinerator at the Bagram base north of Kabul.

U.S. President Barack Obama sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai apologizing for the incident. U.S. officials at the time said some of the religious material had been removed from the prison library at Bagram because of concern that it was extremist in nature and was being used to pass messages among prisoners.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/u-troops-face-punishment-over-koran-burning-urination-155718044.html

[OnyxCollie]

1. Army to soldiers: Don't let the locals see you.

Now get out of here, you crazy kids.

Why am I so cynical?

Second soldier sentenced in Pvt. Danny Chen hazing trial
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-soldier-sentenced-danny-chen-trial-20120813,0,5005638.story

Spec. Ryan J. Offutt was sentenced by a military judge to six months in prison. He was demoted to private and will receive a dishonorable discharge for taunting Chen with ethnic slurs and pelting him with rocks and bottles. He is the second soldier sentenced in the case.

~snip~

Offutt, who said he suffered a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan, apologized for mistreating Chen. He told the court he knew hazing and harassing Chen was wrong, but he did it because soldiers he respected also were mistreating the private. At one point, prosecutors said, Offutt grabbed Chen by his combat vest and dragged him across the ground at a remote combat outpost in southern Afghanistan.

In exchange for Offutt’s guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of negligent homicide and reckless endangerment, along with three counts of assault, four counts of maltreatment and two counts of violating regulations.

Late last month, Army Sgt. Adam Holcomb was found guilty of assault and maltreatment in the Chen case, but he was acquitted of more serious charges of negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat and hazing. Holcomb, 30, was sentenced to 30 days in prison, reduced in rank and fined a month’s pay.

[ZombieHorde]

2. "We're going to send you in to kill a bunch of people, but make sure to respect the inanimate

objects you come across."

Seems nuts to me, but when everyone else seems crazy, I have to start wondering if I am the crazy one.

[xtraxritical]

3. When our military heros come home lets give them jobs in law enforcement.

[oldsarge54]

4. They Screwed UP

I was brought up in the military, back when the Wall was built, and the Cuban missile crisis caused our evacuation out of Berlin. I served 25 years in the Air Force myself, pulling a half tour in Nam until Kissinger said go home, we won. I was always taught to be a good guest, EVEN IN A COMBAT ZONE. We were in Afghanistan to save the country, preserve their culture from the overzealousness of their own right wing crazies. The GIs were in the wrong, both by regulations, and morally wrong. Cheering what they did and calling them heroes or martyrs on destroys the meaning of USA.

[WooWooWoo]

5. well, i half agree with you

The urinating on dead bodies thing, that was just sick. They should have known better and there's no excuse for that. The burning of the Koran thing, I'm not sure I agree with any punishment for that. That seems more like scapegoating, even though I'm sure they won't get anything more than a summarized article 15 (the military equivalent to a slap on the wrist).

Again, it gets back to a central point about this whole war. Soldiers and marines have one main job - which is to locate and destroy the enemy. When you add on a whole bunch of other things - humanitarian relief, education, training, winning hearts and minds, ect - you take people out of their area of experience and training and set them up for failure.

You shouldn't send trained killers out to do the job the U.N. should be doing.

[oldsarge54]

6. And half to you sir

You are limiting our servicemenbers when you think of them only as trained killers. Humanitarian relief, done that, resupply, done that, education and training, winning hearts and minds are part and parcel of winning a guerrilla war, and the original reason for the special forces. Please don't think of our forces as just killers.

[ManiacJoe]

7. Am I remembering the Koran burning correctly

in that it was a matter of the cleanup crew grabbing too many boxes and then not looking in the boxes before the contents were dumped into the incinerator?