this soldier be deployed as well!

I really wish it was.

Here are the defendants at the court.

The sergeant, that is an obvious one.

The US Army

The American People

The US government, the last three are not obvious.

I suspect though that for you this is an open and shut case, which it is not,

Suffice to say, I expect MORE, no less of these incidents.

I even expect a few of these IN THE US, with a vet or two (A really small minority) that will snap. We even have had a few already of those... conveniently we sweep it under the rug.

By the way, I am not justifying it. I just get it... binary thinking is not a good thing.

Loughner is not fit to stand trial.

There are a series of events that led to this with the sergeant that are extremely different.

If you cannot comprehend it, we have nothing more to say to each other. I am glad he has an extremely good lawyer and I do hope he does put the army to shame and makes them the accomplice they are.

Have a good day with that eye for an eye thinking.

Nobody who goes on a killing spree does so for rational reasons, and there always will be contributing factors for the reasons why people do these things. However, the question is whether this guy was deranged or not, which implies that he had some sort of psychosis that prevented him from telling right from wrong. The facts don't support that conclusion. This doesn't mean that there weren't others culpable to varying degrees for this tragedy.

Those folks up the chain who believe occupying Afghanistan for ten years and killing people is a good idea.

with that kind of thinking.

isn't? The man is damaged and was not supposed to go back. he was re-trained to be a recruiter. then they sent him. It is reasonable to believe to a high degree that he is impaired and not responsible. To throw him away when the fuckers responsible for all of this sit in their houses untouched is bullshit. Fisk needs to direct his ire to the right place. This guy is probably impaired enough under stress to be insane at the time.

More from the article:

and is not engaged in binary thinking. There are so many shades of gray on this, it's not even funny.

absorb the warning of the US commander.

The military is trained to listen to heir superiors. The culprit probably has all his life until this time. Hence he probably snapped.

I was extremely disappointed in a Robert Fisk interview on Al Jazeera, where he stated that the "President of the United States and threatened Iran with war" and other incorrect claims about the ME. In fact, I was disgusted, because Obama had warned Republicans to not talk about war with Iran. Fisk's statement was a blatant lie.

There are many shades of gray in this one, and Robert Fisk is trying to make it black and white, cut and dried, where he does not mind taking liberties with the truth.

Obama absolutely threatened to attack Iran:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/

At the White House on Monday, President Obama will seek to persuade the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to postpone whatever plans he may have to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months. Obama will argue that under his leadership, the United States "has Israel's back," and that he will order the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear program if economic sanctions fail to compel Tehran to shelve its nuclear ambitions.

In the most extensive interview he has given about the looming Iran crisis, Obama told me earlier this week that both Iran and Israel should take seriously the possibility of American action against Iran's nuclear facilities. "I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff." He went on, "I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."

----

Talk about taking liberties with the truth...

refused to talk about it until he had a lawyer. If he could think that rationally regarding his own self preservation, it seems he was not totally unaware of what he was doing.

However, what he did was madness. All killing in war is madness.

And if we are going to extend sympathy to him, and I am all for doing that for everyone who ends up victims of these wars, then we must extend the same sympathy and understanding to the people of the countries we invade who do the same thing.

And most of all, we need to get out of all of these countries and stop killing people all over the world.

NPR lied the other day when they called this the 'worst such incident since the wars began'. Where have they been? Have they forgotten the early days in Afghanistan? The slaughter of men, women and children at wedding parties eg? The cluster bombings of the market in Iraq? Blackwater's slaughter of 17 innocent civilians in Iraq? Haditha, among other atrocities? And what about all the drone killings? One in which over 120 people were killed? How about the killing recently of 24 Pakistani soldiers?

After the Pakistani soldiers were killed the drone strikes were suspended and people all over the world hoped that would be the end of them. But sadly, nothing stops the killing machine. During that time a member of the State Dept who agreed with ending the drone attacks said 'we cannot kill our way out of this'. But he was wrong to think his government had finally learned that.

that begs the question of why was he there? but the military has PR people working tirelessly to spin their way around that one i'm sure.

God I'm sick of him. I may be in the tiniest minority here at DU but the respect I once had for fisk evaporated long, long ago.

Dear Mr Fisk you freakin' idiot. This man had a traumatic brain injury. Do you even fucking know what that is? No way anyone with that diagnosis should ever ever have been sent back.

You ask "Do you even fucking know what that is?" I ask this too. Does anyone know if it was anything other than concussion? What diagnosis, beyond concussion, was there? Would you say no soldier who has had concussion should serve in the front line again?

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=434392

he was likely unfit.

How did you assign your likelihood?

We Americans can't possibly do anything that's not noble. It's the arrogance in our culture and why we're a dying empire burying our heads in the sand.

When citizens of occupied nations 'go off' and people are killed while fighting these foreign occupations, they're labelled terrorists. When the U.S. or NATO do the same there's always a dozen reasons, all sympathetic towards the perpetrator.

When is the last time anyone heard a single word uttered for understanding towards Afghan or Iraqi men who've had their families, friends or even countrymen rounded up, tortured, killed for a decade and have acted against occupying forces? Never. Studies showed PTSD among children in Afghanistan and Iraq was at horrendous levels years ago, with adults recorded as being even worse off. I don't condone killing by anyone, period, but the complete disinterest in understanding the reasoning on all sides has always bothered me. It's hypocritical and sad.

Why it's an honorable and good thing, especially when you're there to spread peace! Those few who actually go out and slaughter people just make our wars look bad. Damn them!

Getting the military to do something else in Afghanistan is difficult.

That the occasional soldier goes berserk and kills some people should not be a surprise.

since I think wars are berserk abominations perpetrated for the benefit of a mere handful of people. And lots of citizens keep falling for their propaganda to get us whipped up into a patriotic fury. When was the last time a war was really the action of last resort? As far as I can tell if they don't quite feel they have enough reason to go to all out war they'll make a reason happen through demonizing and waving the flag and stirring up American jingoism till all the people want is to spill death onto other countries.

And all the present GOP Presidential wannabes are frothing at the mouth already just thinking about having the power to wage unrepentant bloody war.

But let one soldier act out and viciously slaughter whole families who our government have already turned into demons and sub-humans and everyone screams in disgust. Really?

and war is madness,

incidently, how many civilians have been killed in drone strikes?"