# Soldier Gets Death **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 29, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728 "2005-04-29T16:10:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![guinnog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@guinnog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guinnog)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/61 "2005-05-01T22:54:11Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > You are right on the border of making a good point, that if we send men into combat we need to realize some will go over the edge. We should try to do things to minimize this: psychologists in theater, chaplains, and commanding officers that know how to try and keep stress as low as possible for soldiers in the field. > > Trying to link these problems to any alleged lies of the Bush administration is either done out of you not understanding the issue or you just wanting to rip at the administration. I suspect the latter. You are right twice. Obviously troops in combat deserve all the psychological support we can give them, to help keep them tossing the grenades in the right direction, to quote **Miller** ’s elegant phrase. A stressed soldier is I would think a more-likely-to-snap soldier, though I admit I cannot find cites for that. It seems likely though that on numerical grounds alone, the ongoing wars must surely add to the probability of such events happening, even if we accept that this chap wasn’t personally affected by anything as simple as battlefield stress. Therefore, more wars = more stressed soldiers = more incidents like this one. The link I make is purely one of suggested correlation; I absolutely cannot prove the causality in this instance. As to my motivation, sure I was having a pop at Bush. I assure you I would be just as condemnatory if it was Clinton or Kerry and that I have very little affection for, or affiliation to, either of the US political parties. I assure you too that as a UK citizen I am more angry with our own Mr Blair than anyone else in the whole thing. I voted for the fucker (twice) and then he lied and spun us into a war we didn’t need to fight, apparently mostly just to show willing to Bush. So, if I come across a bit bitter, maybe that’s because the whole Iraq thing is very much an election issue here and I’ve been reading about a lot of it recently. Then I come to this guy’s court case and the verdict is the thread title. I encounter the facetious comment (and I’m sorry, Tuckerfan, if I took you wrong) about not having any problem finding willing executioners. To me the affair of Hasan Akbar is a little tragedy within a big tragedy, one that is still going on and still playing a role in the politics of this country. This comment got my goat and I expressed my annoyance in shatire. > [@bizzwire](#): > > I’m having a hard time finding where anyone has said that this war was necessary. If you feel that you have been taken to task for saying it was not, that’s because the subject of this thread is Hasan Akbar, not whether we feel the invasion of Iraq was justified or not (even though that was the gist of his defense) > > It is commendable that you take no pleasure in the thought of his execution, Others, obviously don’t share your views. However, please don’t conflate the two trains of thought. Dismissing his defense that his actions were based on the illegality of the war is not the same as saying the invasion was warranted. LOL. You are right. It has become apparent that I have somewhat hijacked the thread with shatire and political anger, possibly for the internal psychological reasons that **Martin Hyde** has outlined and I have expanded on above. So, let’s cut to the chase here and give it the whole nine yards. Who, here, takes pleasure in Mr Hasan Akbar’s potential execution? (which brings us back more squarely on topic) And who here believes that the incident was just as likely to have happened in peace time? Ignoring the moral or legal stature of the war in question? (which takes the politics out of it a bit) Better? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/62 "2005-05-01T23:08:13Z")
> [@guinnog](#): > > I still think the guy would not have done what he did unless he had the opportunity that participation in the invasion afforded him. But the main point of my initial schoolboy parody was I suppose to express my disgust with the unthinking conventionality of much US writing on the war. The war was avoidable, evil and recent. Well, no, it does seem rather unlikely that he would have rolled a grenade into a tent full of American soldiers if America did not have a military prescense in the Mid-East. But I don’t think you can reasonably blame the current administration for anything beyond putting this guy, and thousands of other Americans, there in the first place. There’s plenty of meat on that bone as it is, without holding them responsible for his subsequent actions. If you were talking about Abu Ghraib, or some other incident where US soldiers behaved criminally because of the orders they were given, I think you’d get a much more positive reaction. Whatever your impression of “US writing on the war” has been, you’ll find very few supporters of it on this board. > [@](#): > > The OP, to which I was responding, seemed far too triumphalist to me about a situation where there is no good in sight. I didn’t see anything in the OP that indicated support of the war, and I don’t recall that **Tuckerfan** has argued for the war in the past. I think you are reading things into the OP that are not there. > [@](#): > > 100 000 dead in Iraq. No working government yet. Continuing serious violence there. Worse in Iraq. > > Patriot Act. Increasing polarisation of your country, which I do not think it needed. Still no real understanding of the causes of anti-US feeling in the wider world. Increasing cynicism about politicians and heir motives. The money wasted. USD 167 000 000 000 so far and rising. ([www.costofwar.com](http://www.costofwar.com)) Worse for the USA. > > Worse for Britain too; a long-standing impact on our trust in politicians, which was already pretty low. Worse for people like me from here who actually quite like aspects of the USA. Again, all of these are bad things, but they are seperate from the issue broached by the OP. I think all of the above are reprehensible, but I am still appalled by Hasan Akbar’s crime, and am glad to see justice done in his case. Especially given that justice, in this case, is likely to _not_ include a death sentence. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/63 "2005-05-01T23:11:33Z")
> [@guinnog](#): > > So, let’s cut to the chase here and give it the whole nine yards. > > Who, here, takes pleasure in Mr Hasan Akbar’s potential execution? I do not take pleasure in his possible execution. From what I have read, Mr. Akbar is a nitwit, who killed out of his personal convictions. Killing other people, based on your personal convictions, is a very, very bad thing as far as I am concerned (the names “Osama Bin Laden” and “George Bush” come to mind), So I hope that his execution may remind people of this. That’s about the only good I can see coming out of this. > [@](#): > > And who here believes that the incident was just as likely to have happened in peace time? Ignoring the moral or legal stature of the war in question? There’s something about war that just brings out the worst in people, dont’cha think?. I think the chances of this happening in peacetime would be much smaller. But that’s because I generally equate “Peacetime” as “a period where people don’t kill each other.” YMMV ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/64 "2005-05-02T01:20:02Z")
And…C’mon…“But first a little Chee-Chee?”… This is good stuff, folks.; Who do I gotta blow to get an “LOL” around here? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/65 "2005-05-02T01:47:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I didn’t see anything in the OP that indicated support of the war, and I don’t recall that **Tuckerfan** has argued for the war in the past. I think you are reading things into the OP that are not there. He certainly is, since whatever merits removing Saddam might have had, have been wiped out by the utter botching of the occupation. IAC, given that Akbar has written anti-American comments as far back as **1997** , I think that it was only a matter of time before he snapped. It just happened to be prior to the invasion of Iraq that he went off. If the US hadn’t decided to invade Iraq, Akbar no doubt would have found some other excuse to kill his brother in arms. ---
**Author:** ![guinnog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@guinnog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guinnog)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/66 "2005-05-02T09:57:22Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > He certainly is, since whatever merits removing Saddam might have had, have been wiped out by the utter botching of the occupation. IAC, given that Akbar has written anti-American comments as far back as **1997** , I think that it was only a matter of time before he snapped. It just happened to be prior to the invasion of Iraq that he went off. If the US hadn’t decided to invade Iraq, Akbar no doubt would have found some other excuse to kill his brother in arms. Hmm. Well, I am open (and have signalled my openness already) to believing that you did not mean what I thought you meant. Couple of questions then. Would you say the Army could have acted earlier and prevented this incident? Seems to me that if they could have, they should have. Would you say that Akbar was mentally ill or just **evil**? Do you, in fact, take pleasure in the (probably unrealistic) thought of his execution? Were the ‘anti-American comments’ he made as far back as 1997 illegal ones for a soldier to make? Or just the sorts of dissent protected by your wonderful constitutional right to free speech? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/67 "2005-05-02T10:30:24Z")
> [@guinnog](#): > > Hmm. Well, I am open (and have signalled my openness already) to believing that you did not mean what I thought you meant. > > Couple of questions then. Would you say the Army could have acted earlier and prevented this incident? Seems to me that if they could have, they should have. It certainly appears that the military could have acted sooner. > [@](#): > > Would you say that Akbar was mentally ill or just **evil**? I am not a mental health professional, and I haven’t examined Akbar, so I can’t say what his mental state might have been at the time of the attack was. His actions, however, were most certainly evil. That they might have been driven by mental illness doesn’t change the fact that they were evil. > [@](#): > > Do you, in fact, take pleasure in the (probably unrealistic) thought of his execution? I think that it’s a fitting punishment for his crimes. > [@](#): > > Were the ‘anti-American comments’ he made as far back as 1997 illegal ones for a soldier to make? Or just the sorts of dissent protected by your wonderful constitutional right to free speech? Given that they were along the lines of thinking that innocent people should die, I’d say that they were illegal for a soldier to make. The First Amendment doesn’t protect all forms of speech, remember. One cannot yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater and expect not to be charged with creating a disturbance if there is no fire, for example. Even if they weren’t illegal, they should have indicated that there were problems with Akbar, and that at the very least, he should have been closely watched. ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/68 "2005-05-02T11:41:06Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#): > > Sadly, I have to agree with you-this case will join all the others that screw around for decades without justice being served. Heck, I’d volunteer to shoot this POS, but that would deprive an enlisted soldier of the opportunity. The only choice that should be made available to him is last meal. Could you explain to me exactly how justice is served by the judicial murder of anyone? ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/69 "2005-05-02T11:44:34Z")
Actually, **danceswithcats** , since you appear to be in support of the barbaric practice of judicial killing, and would be happy to participate in this one, I am sure that you would be just as happy to participate in the judicial killings of those convicted of slaughtering Iraqi prisoners - right? ---
**Author:** ![guinnog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@guinnog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guinnog)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/70 "2005-05-02T11:46:38Z")
> [@UnwrittenNocturne](#): > > Could you explain to me exactly how justice is served by the judicial murder of anyone? Just what I was wondering. Do folks think that the victims will magically spring back to life once they are avenged by the state in this fashion? Nope. Or do they think that in the future, any mentally ill person in the forces thinking of doing something like this will think: ‘Ah, hang on. The last guy to do this got the death sentence. I’d better write to the SDMB instead. Phew!’ Seems unlikely. So, just what will it achieve? Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728/71 "2005-05-02T11:56:15Z")
> [@guinnog](#): > > Just what I was wondering. Do folks think that the victims will magically spring back to life once they are avenged by the state in this fashion? > > Nope. > > Or do they think that in the future, any mentally ill person in the forces thinking of doing something like this will think: ‘Ah, hang on. The last guy to do this got the death sentence. I’d better write to the SDMB instead. Phew!’ > > Seems unlikely. > > So, just what will it achieve? > > Anyone? Well, it strikes me as more humane than leaving them confined in a small room for the rest of their lives. Of course, some people _like_ the thought of a murderer having to spend potentially several decades thinking about what it is that they’ve done (that’s assuming that the person comes to regret their actions, not always a given). Other people like the thought that the murderer could potentially be subjected to abuse at the hands of their fellow prisoners. All of that seems rather cruel to me. Better that they’re put donw like a rabid animal than be forced to suffer for decades. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soldier-gets-death/301728.md?page=3)