The story stinks to high heavens. A few lines from one story...
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“Sunday’s shooting rampage began in Balandi, a village about 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) south of the base.”
“Eleven were from one family. Five other people were wounded.”
“Two who lost relatives insisted that not one — but at least two — soldiers took part in the shootings.”
“Mohammad Wazir told the delegation that he was out of town when 11 of his relatives were slain at his house about 2:30 a.m.”
“It was the closing scene of a massacre that left 16 civilians, including nine children, dead in two villages in southern Kandahar province.”
“He said his sister told him that she heard gunfire and saw at least two soldiers firing inside their walled compound before she ran to hide in the kitchen of her uncle’s home nearby.”
“After the killings in Balandi, south of the base, four other people were gunned down in the village of Alkozai, about 1 kilometer (less than a mile) north of the base.”
“Sayed Jan said he was in the nearby city of Kandahar where he does construction work when the shooting occurred shortly before 3 a.m. at his house in Alkozai. He told the delegation that his cousins next door saw two men enter the house and gun down four people. The cousins ran to safety.”
“Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, said Monday in Washington that an Afghan soldier on guard duty reported seeing a U.S. soldier walk off the base. That report prompted a head count, which revealed that the staff sergeant was missing. A search party was organized, but others on the base could not find the missing soldier before the attacks occurred, Allen said.”
“Members of the Afghan delegation investigating the killings said one Afghan guard working from midnight to 2 a.m. saw a U.S. soldier return to the base around 1:30 a.m. Another Afghan soldier who replaced the first and worked until 4 a.m. said he saw a U.S. soldier leaving the base at 2:30 a.m. It’s unknown whether the Afghan guards saw the same U.S. soldier.”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/students-protest-us-soldier-killed-afghans-15907521
Seriously, think about some of it...it does NOT make sense.
The timing of leaving base (and how does one just leave base with weapons and a fair amount of ammo and it is only Afghan guards guarding?).
The time the US soldier is supposedly seen leaving base, the camp check, the timing of the killings (phone calls received by out of town relative would verify that timeline) He walks a mile South to a town, kills, burns, then walks a mile or so North to a town and kills. They appear targeted at particular families, oddly, ones where men are *out of town*?
There is TOO much that doesn’t add up...we are missing a bunch of information here and what we do have, stinks.
He suggests, based on his knowledge of the area and the Taliban, that the idea of random attacks because the SSgt went nuts is BS. He suggests that, based on the evidence, (what we've been told,) that this was a deliberate hit on two Taliban members.
A: It's far from easy to stroll out of an FOB with a weapon in the middle of the night.
B: He goes from one house in one village, to another house in a different village to complete his "random killing." Why didn't he just go to another house in the same 'ville?
C: The Taliban are VERY compartmentalized. One guy will recon where an IED might go, another will be paid to just dig the hole, a third will plant the IED, a fourth will trigger it. None of them will know the rest.
D: Conclusion. Do you suppose that he was off the reservation because the ROE wouldn't let him take out a Taliban cell that had injured his bro a few days before?
It makes more sense than "a random crazy act."