First appeared in USA Today
Throughout Afghanistan, people are struggling with how to
deal with allegations against an American soldier accused of leaving his base
and killing 16 people Sunday.
The shooting spree, which has been widely condemned by
American officials, comes as relations between Afghanistan and the West are
tense after the burning of Qurans on a U.S. base last month. The Taliban has
vowed revenge for this "inhumane crime."
Afghans pondered the motivations behind the incident and how
it fits into larger questions about the American presence here.
"Of course, no one can close their eyes to what the
foreigners have done for us. In the country we have more development. Overall,
we would not say that they're bad people," says Abdul Qadir, a high school
teacher in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of the south's restive Helmand
province.
Citing another incident in which NATO forces killed Afghans
at a wedding party, he says, "If foreigners give us everything and make us
rich but they try to kill us, then what is the need for having
everything?"
There are still many questions about what happened in the
villages of Balandi and Alkozai in Panjwai before dawn Sunday. The Pentagon has
declined to identify the shooter, but some details of the shooting were
emerging Monday.
A Pentagon official who spoke on background because the
killings are under investigation said the villages were about 800 yards from
the small military base. An Afghan guard reported the suspected shooter — a
38-year-old staff sergeant and 11-year veteran — leaving the base but probably
would have had no reason to challenge him, the officials said.
The official said victims of the shootings, which occurred
in three houses, were as young as 2. The death toll is 16, and it may rise as
some of those who survived were wounded critically.
Shortly after the shootings, by about 4 a.m., villagers
began bringing bodies and the wounded to the base. The soldier was noticed
missing and troops put "two and two together" and quickly realized he
was the likely suspect, the official said.
The suspect could be court martialed in Afghanistan and be
subject to the death penalty. The murders were premeditated, the officials
said.
Another senior Pentagon source said the shooter acted on his
own and described him as a "troubled individual" but that the signs
of his problems were not obvious.
Plans call for the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces
while turning over security to the Afghan government in 2014. The pace of the
Afghanistan withdrawal is one of the topics of this week's visit to Washington
by British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Afghanistan also will top the agenda at the G-8 and NATO
summits Obama will host at Camp David.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday the killings
will not affect the timetable of the U.S. withdrawal.
Obama — who apologized to Afghanistan for the burning of
Qurans less than a month ago — said Sunday, "I am deeply saddened by the
reported killing and wounding of Afghan civilians."
"This incident is tragic and shocking and does not
represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the
United States has for the people of Afghanistan," the president said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack .
"This is an assassination, an intentional killing of
innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven," Karzai said Sunday.
Villagers described how they cowered in fear as gunshots
rang out while the soldier roamed from house to house firing on those inside.
"He was walking around taking up positions in the house
— in two or three places like he was searching," said 26-year-old witness
Mohammad Zahir, who watched the gunman while hiding in another room.
"He was on his knees when he shot my father" in
the thigh, he told The Associated Press. His father was wounded but survived.
Zahir recounted the harrowing scene in his family home when
the soldier came in before dawn.
"I heard a gunshot. When I came out of my room,
somebody entered our house. He was in a NATO forces uniform. I didn't see his
face because it was dark," he said.
Zahir said he quickly went into another room in the house,
where animals are penned. "After that, I saw him moving to different areas
of the house - like he was searching," he said.
His father, unarmed, then took a few steps out of his
bedroom door, Zahir recalled. "He was not holding anything - not even a
cup of tea," Zahir said. Then he fired.
"My mother was pulling my father into the room. I put a
cloth on his wound," he said.
After the gunman left, Zahir said he heard gunshots near the
house again. He stayed in hiding for a few minutes to make sure he was gone.
The soldier accused in the shooting was in custody at a NATO
base in Afghanistan.
The Taliban said in a statement on its website that
"sick-minded American savages" committed the "blood-soaked and
inhumane crime" in Panjwai district, a rural region outside Kandahar that
is the cradle of the Taliban where coalition forces have fought for control for
years.
The militant group promised the families of the victims that
it would take revenge "for every single martyr with the help of
Allah."
Protests that followed the Quran burnings last month ended
with almost 40 dead, including four U.S. service members, but as of Monday,
there were no major demonstrations in response to the shootings. Nor were there
any violent demonstrations in response to a recent video of U.S. Marines
urinating on dead Afghans. Internet in
Afghanistan proves to be important.
"Overall, this was a really bad incident, especially
looking at the photos of the kids who were killed," says Jalil Babak, an
Afghan soldier stationed in Nangarhar province. "But this is a conflict,
and anything can happen in war. This is not the first time a soldier or
policeman, foreign or Afghan, has done something like this. In the past, many
times the Afghan security people opened fire on their foreign colleagues and
killed them. This is not a new issue."
He says the support of the U.S. and international community
has been indispensable to Afghanistan, and he hopes people will not focus to
heavily on this issue and risk losing international backing.
As the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan shifts from war fighting
to small groups of U.S. troops training Afghan security forces in their
communities to counter insurgent groups like the Taliban, American troops will
be more isolated and vulnerable, according to Anthony Cordesman, an analyst
with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
U.S. officials who want to support a continuing war effort
need to educate Americans "that this is war," he said. "We're
going to see incidents like this and we're also going to see that this is the
new IED (improvised explosive device) for the Taliban and Haqqani network -- to
push as much strife between Afghan troops and ISAF (International Security Assistance
Force) and NATO as possible."
Michael O'Hanlon, director of research at the Brookings
Institution, said the shooting is the wost incident of its kind by a NATO
service member in Afghanistan, and could precipitate a significant reaction by
Afghan civilians and a change in Afghan policy makers' attitude toward NATO.
The shooting of multiple civilians at a Baghdad intersection
by the security firm Blackwater "affected everything" in Iraq,
including the Iraq legislature's unwillingness to give immunity to U.S. service
members there, which led to an early departure of NATO troops last winter,
O'Hanlon said.
Some Afghans questioned whether Americans respect
fundamental Afghan values.
"America is saying they are the defenders of the human
rights … but the things they are doing in Afghanistan are completely against
human rights," says Abdul Rahim Ayobi, a member of parliament from
Kandahar. Though it's clear the killings were not planned at a high level or
part of the American strategy, he says, "it finally gives us the message
that now the American soldiers are out of the control of their generals."
The issue could complicate negotiations between the United
States and Afghanistan that would allow U.S. troops to stay beyond the 2014
deadline. Last November, leaders agreed at a loya jirga, or grand assembly,
that any such agreement should make any international service member who
commits a crime accountable to the Afghan courts. Satellite
Internet in Afghanistan proves to be important.
Sunday's shooting has brought this issue into sharp relief
once more. During a parliamentary session Monday, the legislative body
condemned the action and called for the prosecution of the soldier in
Afghanistan.
"The person committed the crime here in Afghanistan,
and if he gets punished in Afghanistan, it will be a lesson for others, but
since foreign soldiers are not prosecuted in Afghanistan, that's why they
continuously commit crimes in Afghanistan," says Qazi Abdul Rahim, a
member of parliament from Badghis province and a former judge. "America
always says they are here for security and helping Afghans, but in reality, you
see it's the opposite."
U.S. troops accused of wrongdoing in Afghanistan are subject
to U.S. military law and proceedings, according to the Military Technical
Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States.
One of the most difficult challenges for the immediate
future may be controlling Afghan perception of the incident.
"This crime was an individual crime done by a single
person. It is not the policy or strategy of Americans to kill innocent
civilians, but still the public reaction will blame the government of America,
not the soldier," says Kamal Safai, a member of parliament from Kunduz.
