Army charged one of our best with murder today....for killing the enemy in 2010.

What a shame...

ABC News:
A former U.S. Army Green Beret has been charged with the 2010 murder of a man he suspected of being a Taliban bomb maker.
The charges follow multiple investigations of Major Matthew Golsteyn's role in the man's death that he once admitted to Fox News during a 2016 interview.
"Major Matthew Golsteyn's immediate commander has determined that sufficient evidence exists to warrant the preferral of charges against him," said Lt. Col. Loren Bymer, a spokesman for U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
"Major Golsteyn has been charged with the murder of an Afghan male during his 2010 deployment to Afghanistan," he continued.

Who ever brought charges should be dishonorabley discharged

Yikes. From what I can make of it, two men in his unit were killed by booby trap bombs. They found the bomb maker, but he wasn't on a list of people approved to kill. That's ridiculous. There's no rules in war. We don't need to be savages, we're supposed to be above that. But surely anybody can agree that anyone who bombs and kills our soldiers is the enemy, and the enemy needs to be killed. War should be fought quickly and decisively. We're supposed to be the most powerful military on earth, but we cant seem to defeat a bunch of illiterate goons with AKs and RPGs, because we have these stupid rules. Get in, take care of the enemy, reduce them to a smoking hole in the ground, and get out. If presidents (now two republicans and one democrat) and congress would realize this, we wouldn't have even been in Afghanistan in 2010, and we wouldn't have lost two marines to booby trap bombs.

loosegoose,

your post would make [some] sense (there ARE rules in war), if we were fighting a conventional enemy state.

we are NOT fighting against a state. this ideological enemy dresses in civilian garb and melts into the population, after their attacks.

what do we do, go in and kill everyone we see? Mai Lai massacre, anyone?

There are "rules of war", but they're basically a gentleman's agreement of sorts. Who's going to enforce them? Other countries? Screw them, we're our own sovereign nation, they can go pound sand. In the case of Afghanistan, we should have taken out the Taliban and the terrorist training centers they were famous for, and then left. In the case of Iraq, there was no need to get involved at all. No need to rout out every terrorist in the world. They hate us because we aren't them, and there's nothing we can do to change that. They'll always exist, should we always be at "war"? Let them hate us from afar. An AK can shoot a long ways, but it cant shoot across the ocean. What happens in other countries isn't our business. If it comes to our shores, then it becomes our problem, and we can deal with it swiftly as severely. No need to have this endless war stuff though, that's ridiculous.

The article says he admitted it to Fox News . However , I read elsewhere that this came out during the course of a polygraph .

That’s potentially the problem depending on how the question and subsequent questions were phrased. I’m certainly not assigning guilt , but how he answered the polygraph could be a sticker.

Anyone who’s ever had a poly probably has an idea of what I’m talking about.

A polygraph itself is not admissible in court. However, the test is like truth serum. The pre-test interview, people disclose all kinds of confessions. That's how Haditha came to light, the guy was off active duty and asked if he ever did a crime. He spilled the beans on Haditha.

The army officer in this case was out applying for a job and disclosed this incident in a polygraph interview. Investigation and board of inquiry followed but no charges. Then being a genius he went on Fox news and admitted it to the world. Can't execute POWs, what did he think would happen talking about it on Fox news.

The rules of war, who survives. It's crying shame, news articles, tell their side. Willing to bet 99.9%, never seen a fellow brother, get shot or blown away. It's called war, stupid games with stupid prizes rewarded. I'd recommend a good lawyer, and putting his story out there and get some support ,he will get. I never saw a report, in VN, until after the battle was over.

we agreed to them...our honorable word is at stake.

Rules of war according to God.

Kill everybody, men, women and children.
Take no spoils.

His way worked, the Taliban be gave a dirt nap tp is no longer killing US soldiers.

I see no problem, these tali's are not soldiers they will kill anyone, anywhere and anytime. They follow no rules of war...give em all a dirt nap.

Should have nuked bin laden on 9/12. Set a good precedent.

except...what if he got the wrong guy? he SUSPECTED him of planting the IED.

it's not like he caught him red-handed.

I'm not gonna sit here and judge the Green Beret; but it isn't as clear cut as some would have you believe.

What were the residents of Hiroshima suspected of? That display of force saved US soldiers lives.

What if he did not kill him and the guy killed a dozen more US soldiers?

I guarantee you he did not randomly pick someone out....he was extremely sure. How sure do you need to be?

the residents of Hiroshima supported the GOVERNMENT we were at war with...until Nagasaki changed their mind; and the war ended.

this war is different.

you were there, then?

I doubt the residents of Hiroshima were able to change their minds about anything one second after detonation.

Yes, this war is different. I ww2 we did what was necessary to win.. civilians were directly targeted. Guess what?


We won. Very different from what is going on in afgan today.


Anyway, I think it is a shame they charged the major. He was doing his job which is trying to win while keeping his men as safe as possible. Battlefield discretion.

not every citizen of Hiroshima was vaporized...many survived.

I'm not sure how to get this through your head, but it is not the GOVERNMENT of Afghanistan we are at war with...it is an insidious ideology that is festering in many parts of the world, including the USA.

you okay with the CIA assassinating US citizens because they are "extremely sure" they're a threat?

You do not need to get anything through my head....just forget about that.

How did you go from a soldier killing a bomb maker he was extremely sure was the bomb maker who killed US soldiers in a war zone to the cia killing us citizens?

That's kind of a broad jump in topics.

You win a war, any war by killing the enemy and those who support them. Keep killing them all until they have had enough. Proven to be a great strategy thru thousands of years of warfare. Take away their will to fight. Put your foot on the throat of these people and leave it there for a long time.

Simple.

Anyway, I hope the major is acquitted.

Danny's post was deleted, negating this response.

not really...there are US citizens who are planning such attacks, even as we speak.

kill them, too...because you're pretty sure they'll do it?

sounds like this guy might have violated orders, too...that okay?