Obama should double down with a surge and make the GOP cut and run.
Defeat is defeat..

This soldier was on his fourth tour of duty..We cannot imagine what atrocities
he has faced or what has been like to be separated from his family constantly.
What is it like to live in fear every day. This is what war does. We need
to get the fuck out

"These boys are good soldiers. It's the war that's doing it to them. They're just stressed out from combat."

Yeah, right. Plead insanity. It's been known to work.

The guy who did this might actually be suffering from PTSD - OR - he might be just a smart bigot who knows how to work the system. Either way, it's no excuse. I'm not an attorney, but I think the law does recognize the designation of being criminally insane for which there are, I believe, legal repercussions.

if this guy hadn't been on his fourth tour.

I understand the concept. For me, no amount of tours could make me shoot an unarmed little girl, but everyone is not me. Some people... break.

I in no way condone or even understand how anyone could do this, however the post did make me think a little bit..

And NEVER EVER say you wouldn't do abominable act X, Y or Z. Almost anyone WILL break under enough pressure, you and I included. Some will harm only their own families through suicide. They might be the lucky ones.

Numerous studies have demonstrated with depressing clarity, that 2/3 of PERFECTLY ORDINARY PEOPLE will commit abominable acts, simply because a person in authority ordered it. For soldiers trained to follow orders and not question them, I'd suspect it's over 90%. You might not go out and shoot a child at random, but it is far more likely than not, that if (as a soldier) you were ordered to shoot into a building or crowd that you knew contained children, you would do so, or at least send a lot of lead into the air, whilst your fellows took careful aim.

The ones who truly would NEVER. Who WOULD put their own lives between their out of control fellows and the enemy are rare as fucking hens teeth and you DON'T get to claim the same moral ground as them until you've walked in their shoes.

how they are going to act in any situation. You even have "studies" to back yourself up.

You don't know me, you don't know what I have dealt with, you haven;'t the slightest idea who I am yet you DEMAND that I NEVER EVER say I won't do this or I won't do that.

Piss off. You have no fucking clue who I am. Go flaunt your fucking bullshit superiority somewhere else.

Milgram Experiment and Stanford Prison Experiment are both poster examples of exactly how depressingly easy it is for good, ordinary people to behave very, very badly.

History teaches us that the behaviour of soldiers can be, and WILL BE abominable given the least opportunity. Given greater opportunity they can and will descend to pack rape, infanticide, and genocide, as we've seen for decades in Africa. And as we are seeing with greater and greater regularity, with American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lindy England was as girl next door as you can get. Most dirty cops started their careers as bright eyed, bush tailed, keen as mustard idealistic kids, not thugs who just wanted a job where they could lord it over people and beat them up, but baby step, by baby step that (and worse) is what they become.

Exactly what superiority BS? YOU are the one laying claim to being SUPERIOR to the vast majority of Humanity.

So yes, absent ACTUAL EVIDENCE that you are a superior example of a human being, I do so FUCKING DEMAND.

Can you truthfully claim that you have NEVER committed a single act of petty cruelty in your life? Can you truthfullly claim that you have always intervened, regardless of consequences, when you've witnessed the petty cruelties of others? I can't and I strongly suspect neither can you.

With money, with training, with weapons. When it became obvious that the Taliban couldn't or wouldn't protect a pipeline to bring the resources of the caspian basin to the sea, the US supported the Northern Alliance. Resources were going to Bin Laden right up until 9/11.

There is nothing to be done but admit defeat, and get the hell out.

he would have been blamed for cutting and running. And I wish he had! I'd rather be accused of ending a war than of prolonging the inevitable as more blood and treasure are poured down the toilet.

I wish Obama would have ended it already. I never expected him too, he never ever said he would. But I wish he had. Now look.

We lost. Get out. Get over it.