Spot The Differences – Moon of Alabama

September 25, 2011

Spot The Differences

Lewis-McChord soldier gets 7-year sentence for murder of Afghan

Pfc. Andrew Holmes on Friday received a seven-year sentence for the 2010 murder of a teenage villager in southern Afghanistan.
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In the two-day court-martial, Holmes acknowledged shooting six to eight rounds from his automatic weapon at the 15-year-old villager — who was unarmed and, Holmes said, "stood like a deer in the headlights."

Ex-Army captain gets 10 years for taking $300K in bribes while stationed in Afghanistan

A decorated former Army captain has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking more than $300,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors.
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According to federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., Handa was assigned to help coordinate reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. He solicited $1.3 million in bribes and received $315,000, which he split with an interpreter.

Posted by b on September 25, 2011 at 17:08 UTC | Permalink

Comments

As I’m sure was your point, b, it is surprising that either got as much as that. No doubt, the sentence will be reduced to nothing, after appeals, and reductions of sentence for good behaviour. How can anybody be punished for minor faults, when only Afghans are concerned?

Posted by: alexno | Sep 25 2011 19:30 utc | 1

Hot damn ! To paraphrase Captain Willard in the movie Apocalypse Now “charging someone with corruption in this place is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indie-500”.
If the US Government is going to start sending people to prison for corruption maybe they should start with Halliburton which regularly overcharges the government, or KBR which cuts costs on electricial wiring that has caused soldiers to be electrocuted when they shower (and lets not even mention Wall St as its not good for my blood pressure). Why charge this one Army Captain with corruption in Afghanistan of all places? Hell half the contractors are paying protection money to the Taliban.
Anyway on a related (Afghan) note two stories:
– Another attack around 6 hours ago in Kabul. This time a building “long rumoured to be the CIA’s base of operations in Kabul” was the scene of gunfire and a possible explosion. The US Embassy, which is located nearby, was placed on lockdown after staff heard the gunfire.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/09/gunfire-possible-explosion-at-kabul-building-believed-to-house-cia/
– In keeping with the earlier piece on the increase in Propaganda regarding Pakistan and the Haqqani Network the New York Times has got a piece today on the history of the network calling the Haqqani’s “The Sopranos of the Afghan War” and again linking them to the ISI (and also mentioning that Charlie Wilson called Jalaluddin Haqqani “goodness personified”.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/world/asia/brutal-haqqani-clan-bedevils-united-states-in-afghanistan.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Sep 25 2011 21:54 utc | 2

On General Abdul Raziq, U.S. supported police chief in Kandahar, major smuggler, torturer and killer.
Our Man in Kandahar
Good piece with good on the ground reporting by Matt Aikins

Posted by: b | Sep 26 2011 15:12 utc | 3

Too sweet, peachy cool – destroy a country, kill more than a million, displace and ruin the lives and loves of millions more, and all their children, and the future of all of them, and prosecute a few bad apples in show trials to uphold the internal image of good guys, so much probity, morality, not to mention just ‘what is right’ .. !
Has anyone ever tracked how much prison time these national heroes actually do?
Of course the bribes thingie is practically irrelevant as measured agains human death and misery. It is fodder for the TV, as 300K sounds like a large sum to the poor in the US – none of them can imagine embezzling such a sum, it seems like wild madness, really scummy and foolish…which is the point that is being made. Both: it is possible, but will be repressed.

Posted by: Noirette | Sep 26 2011 15:49 utc | 4

@alexno – my point was a bit different.
Stealing a few 100,000 from the U.S. gets a higher penalty than killing a foreigner.
Then again – stealing billions from the U.S. will never be followed by a penalty nor will killing ten-thousands of foreigners.

Posted by: b | Sep 26 2011 16:26 utc | 5

Senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday there was “broad bipartisan support for a US attack on Pakistan” and also added the famous line that “all options are on the table”. The question then becomes just how stupid is the US Government? We know they were stupid enough to invade Iraq (population 31 Million) but are they stupid enough to invade Pakistan (population 169 Million)?
Realistically they are probably considering a limited ground offensive in North Waziristan only, which is the main Haqqani stronghold. But if any American ground force launched an offensive on Pakistani soil it would be certain to attract every militant in the entire country to the province excluding the 15,000 fighters Haqqani has. It would also destroy once and for all ties between Pakistan and the US and could led to an uprising by Pakistanis against the government.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/09/25/sen-graham-broad-bipartisan-support-for-us-attack-on-pakistan/

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Sep 26 2011 16:43 utc | 6

Thnx for posting that, Colm. When I heard what Little Lindsey had to say I figured war against Pakistan is about to go mainstream, as in making the news as US invading at least part of Pakistan. We’ve probably already got Special Ops on the ground in the tribal areas, and we drone attack willy nilly, but this will now be US clearly against Pakistan.
Now, when we first began crossing the border “in hot pursuit,” and then drone killing in ever increasing numbers, I feared Pakistan might go the way of Cambodia when Nixon invaded there and persuaded just enough people that their government could not protect them…and the rest is Killing Fields history. But, nah, the US could not be that stupid when a nation has nukes.
Or, does our government figure we can get our hands on the nukes in a timely and effective manner?
Just seems like a bad, bad, bad, bad move…and the proof being offered up? Cell phones found on the bodies of the attackers in Kabul purported show calls to the ISI. Riiiiight.

Posted by: jawbone | Sep 26 2011 17:38 utc | 7

Erdogan was assault by a man the Turkish media identified as a member of the UN Guard during Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday…Minister of Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein, who witnessed the attack, described it as a “very violent incident. Like a scene out of a movie.”

Ban apologizes to Erdogan over UN guard assault – Israel News, Ynetnews

Posted by: hans | Sep 27 2011 4:33 utc | 8

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