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Title: U.S. soldier in Afghan massacre had brain injury: official
Source:
AP
URL Source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-withhold ... afghan-shooting-172025297.html
Published: Mar 12, 2012
Author: Reporting by Missy Ryan; Editing by Will
Post Date: 2012-03-12 19:51:28 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 2132
Comments: 14
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army staff sergeant accused of the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan on Sunday was treated for traumatic brain injury after being in a vehicle that rolled over in Iraq in 2010, a U.S. official said on Monday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was premature to state whether there was any link between the 2010 injury and the Afghanistan incident.
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#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Initial reports said that the soldier simply walked to the villages, which were located about 500 (546 yds) from the military base in Panjwai district. But local journalists say that the villages of Najeeban and Alkozai are about 5-7km (3-4 miles) apart. This immediately raises questions about accounts which said he completed his deadly circuit on foot.....-bbc I notice that the various state organs are doin' CYA. This has My Lai written all over it. # # Nation: THE MY LAI MASSACRE - TIME www.time.com/time/magazin...171,840403,00.htmlSimilar IT passed without notice when it occurred in mid-March 1968, at a time when the war news was still dominated by the siege of Khe Sanh. Yet the brief action at ... 'I will not run, if elected I will not serve....' ;} mcgowanjm posted on [Today]
A woman in one of the villages targeted by the soldier told the BBC she first heard helicopters at 02:00 and then gunfire. Others said helicopters and gunfire could be heard from midnight. It is unclear if extra troops had been sent out after the attacks to apprehend the gunman.... another lie.
But correspondents say helicopters are frequently heard overhead in parts of the country. My Lai.
The whole thing's a bald faced lie: "Intelligence sources in Kandahar have confirmed that some troops stationed at that base were involved in ongoing negotiations with locals trying to convince them to return to their villages, after the Taliban were cleared from the immediate area. " We told 'em to return to their villages. Then we shot them.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was premature to state whether there was any link between the 2010 injury and the Afghanistan incident. Seeking the roots of a U.S. soldier's shooting rampage By Sharon Begley | Reuters ..NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the search for an explanation of why a U.S. soldier left his base in Afghanistan at night and killed 16 civilians in their homes, some experts have raised the possibility that mental illness or a brain injury played a role in the massacre. "We're going to look into all of that," General John Allen, who commands U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, told CNN on Monday, declining to comment further on the mental state of the soldier suspected in Sunday's attack. A U.S. official told Reuters that the staff sergeant had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle rollover in 2010 in Iraq, and was treated and returned to duty. Experts caution against jumping to conclusions, but two facts are known. This was the sergeant's fourth deployment. And the risk of mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety-related disorders is generally higher during subsequent deployments than during a soldier's first. "The more exposure there is to trauma the worse it's going to be," said Dr. David Reiss, a psychiatrist in private practice who has treated patients with PTSD. "Especially if someone is deployed repetitively, then the whole issue of expecting to go home, not going home, just amplifies it." As with most aspects of mental illness, however, the link between deployments and mental illness is not straightforward. For instance, the incidence of PTSD during a third deployment is 2.7 percent among male members of the armed forces, according to a study released last September by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. But the incidence of PTSD for GIs serving a fourth deployment is lower: 1.9 percent, found the study, which analyzed medical records of 1.3 million U.S. military members who had served in Afghanistan or Iraq. Even among GIs aged 30 or older - the sergeant is reportedly 38 - that pattern persists. The rate of PTSD among these older soldiers is 2.4 percent during a third deployment but 1.8 percent during a fourth. By comparison, the rate is 1.2 percent during the first deployment. The rate of other mental illnesses also peaks during the third deployment. About 1.9 percent of male GIs over 30 are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder during their first deployment, compared to 2.5 percent during their third and 2 percent during their fourth. 'DWELL TIME' Another factor influencing the chance of developing a mental illness while serving in the military is the length of time between deployments, or "dwell time." The longer the dwell time, found the 2011 study, "the larger the percentages diagnosed with the conditions after the deployments." During the period of the study - members of the armed forces who returned from Iraq or Afghanistan between October 1, 2001, and December 31, 2010 - 42 percent of men deployed twice, 13 percent deployed three times, almost 4 percent deployed four times, and just over 1 percent deployed five times. One reason for the decrease in the rate of mental illness after the third tour of duty is that service members who develop a mental illness during a deployment "are less likely than their counterparts to deploy again," found the 2011 study, "as a result, repeat deployers may be more psychologically ‘resilient' than their never or less frequently deployed counterparts." Why time between deployments should raise the risk of mental illness is even less clear. But the 2011 study suggested that with long "dwell times" between repeat deployments, a soldier might be more successful at transitioning back to non-combat life - and that, ironically, might make it more difficult to readjust yet again "to ‘warrior' status." As a result, short dwell times may be less psychologically traumatic. The Army has not released information on how long the sergeant, assigned to a unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, waited between his return from Iraq, his previous deployment, and his deployment to Afghanistan last December. The link between PTSD or traumatic brain injury and aggression or violence is only beginning to be unraveled. Overall, mental illness does not increase the risk of committing a violent act, particularly a criminal one. But when someone with a mental illness is violent, said Reiss, "it's going to be less focused, more irrational and it tends to be more dangerous in that way." In particular, PTSD is marked by "sleep problems, irritability, difficulty concentrating, jumpiness, and feeling constantly ‘on guard,'" noted Eric Elbogen, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and colleagues in a 2010 paper. Those symptoms, in turn, "are associated with anger and hostility in soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan," they concluded from interviews with 676 veterans. Violence was also linked to traumatic brain injury, they reported in The American Journal of Psychiatry. PTSD AND VIOLENCE The PTSD-violence connection is believed to arise from feeling threatened even in safe situations, research shows. As a result, "Some may act on impulse or go to extremes to protect themselves," says the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD. "Aggressive behavior is more common in those with PTSD than those without PTSD." The flashbacks that characterize PTSD can make the person feel he is re-living the trauma, triggering an aggressive act meant to ward off the threat. People with PTSD are also more likely to perceive, or imagine, threats. Research has found that their amygdala, the brain structure that perceives threat, is overactive, while the hippocampus, which puts information into context (loud noise = car backfiring, not sniper fire, for instance), is often shrunken in people with PTSD, says neuroscientist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. PTSD can also be marked by emotional numbing, studies show. As a result, someone with the illness may lack empathy and be unable to grasp the gravity of an act of violence. The link between traumatic brain injury and violence has received even less study, with the result that estimates of the connection vary wildly: published analyses have found the frequency of aggressive behaviors after TBI to be as low as 11 percent and as high as 96 percent. A 2009 study found that people who had suffered TBI were 66 percent more likely to commit a violent act than were people who had not been injured. Although it is not clear why TBI should raise the risk of violence, one possibility is that damage to the prefrontal cortex, located just behind the forehead, impairs judgment and impulse control, said Ricardo Jorge, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa, who has studied veterans with traumatic brain injury. In particular, damage to the prefrontal cortex may silent the messages that region sends the violence-prone amygdala. But these are only generalities, which are extremely difficult to apply to any given soldier. "We have never done very well predicting aggression or violence at the individual level," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. (Additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Beech) ...
("Every fetus that DOESN'T go on welfare in 18 years because he/she was aborted yesterday... brings a smile to my face today" ~ GrandIsland - LibertyPost)
another lie. Talked to a guy today who has been to Afghanistan. He said no one leaves the compound/base alone. Simple truth.
False flag to get our troops and assets out of afghanistan...will need them for israel soon.
Never swear "allegiance" to anything other than the 'right to change your mind'! Need them to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, orders from Newt.
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
Simple truth. I have a friennd who came back six months ago who said the same thing. He also described similar events that happened when he was over there way before this current one. He said the Afghanis hate our guts and so many have piercing green eyes that he still has nightmares.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
Nope. The Spec Ops told the people it was safe to return. Then they shot them. If not for the boy playing dead, and other survivors, this would've been a non event. Afghan delegation attacked at site of US killings By MIRWAIS KHAN | Associated Press | 5 hours, 20 minutes ago in Email Share Militants have attacked an Afghan government delegation visiting the site in one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a U.S. soldier is suspected of killing 16 civilians.
Simple truth. They can't even get the god damn map strait. Somehow the witnesses got to the media/public before the USSA could get the story strait. AP losing credibility faster thab ITAR-TASS circa 1988...;} And I don't think 'unforgiveable' means the same thing to Karzai that it means us...;} " Afghan President Hamid Karzai also left open the possibility of more than one shooter in a statement on Sunday. He initially spoke of a single US gunman, then referred to "American forces" entering houses. The statement quoted a 15-year-old survivor named Rafiullah, who was shot in the leg, as telling Karzai in a phone call that "soldiers" broke into his house, woke up his family and began shooting them. "This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven," Karzai said. Looks like they just shot two of his brothers that he sent to Panjawi...;}
Gunmen opened fire on the Afghan President's delegation sent to investigate the Kandahar killings as the group left a mosque in the Panjwai district on Tuesday morning, according to Afghan officials. No one from the delegation - which included two of Karzai's brothers - was hurt; however, one Afghan soldier was killed and three others were wounded. All were members of Afghanistan's security forces. Wonder if they walked from and ran back to our base 500 meters/yards/whatever away...;}
Nope. Nope, nope. The more I'm hearing of this event, the more it stinks. I'm standing by my earlier conclusion and I'm not the only one.
Never swear "allegiance" to anything other than the 'right to change your mind'! ALWAYS go with your first impression. The Only reason the USSAMSM 'covered' this was to prevent complete loss of creds and to minimize the damage: "Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:11PM GMT An Afghan committee says that up to 20 US soldiers have been involved in the Sunday killing of at least 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar Province. The committee or fact-finding mission has been set up by the Afghan Parliament to investigate the killing of at least 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district. I used a couple of search engines to look for the above. Not. One. US Media. Link. Not. One....;}
#2. To: All (#1)
#3. To: All (#2)
Some villagers say that helicopters were flying overhead as the killings took place. Many locals appear to believe that they were in fact supporting the operation rather than trying to stop the gunman.
#4. To: All (#3)
#5. To: UPDATE, A K A Stone, ALL (#0)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army staff sergeant accused of the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan on Sunday was treated for traumatic brain injury after being in a vehicle that rolled over in Iraq in 2010, a U.S. official said on Monday.
#6. To: mcgowanjm (#2)
It is unclear if extra troops had been sent out after the attacks to apprehend the gunman....
#7. To: mcgowanjm (#2)
#8. To: Brian S, *Arab Spring Jihad* (#7)
get our troops and assets out of afghanistan...will need them for israel soon
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#9. To: Fred Mertz (#6)
(Edited)
Talked to a guy today who has been to Afghanistan. He said no one leaves the compound/base alone.
#10. To: Brian S (#7)
False flag to get our troops and assets out of afghanistan...will need them for israel soon.
#11. To: Fred Mertz (#6)
Talked to a guy today who has been to Afghanistan. He said no one leaves the compound/base alone.
#12. To: Brian S (#7)
#13. To: mcgowanjm (#10)
False flag to get our troops and assets out of afghanistan...will need them for israel soon.
#14. To: Brian S (#13)
I'm standing by my earlier conclusion and I'm not the only one.
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