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The U.S. paid $50,000 in compensation for each villager killed and $11,000 for each person wounded in a shooting rampage allegedly carried out by a rogue American soldier in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Sunday.
The families were told that the money came from President Barack Obama. The unusually large payouts were the latest move by the White House to mend relations with the Afghan people after the killings threatened to shatter already tense relations.
Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of sneaking off his base on March 11, then creeping into houses in two nearby villages and opening fire on families as they slept.
Why would it matter? I think we should be more worried about how they feel about, not how people here feel about it. The reality is no amount of money is going to make up for what happened there, but it's better than a signed letter that says "Uhhhh, sorry." It's an acknowledgment that our presence caused irreparable harm. I don't at all fault the armed forces for that. Most of them serve dutifully, honorably, and probably represent us quite well. But we're guests in these villages, and we have to respect that fact -- if we want to make a positive impression that is.
Why would it matter? I think we should be more worried about how they feel about, not how people here feel about it. The reality is no amount of money is going to make up for what happened there, but it's better than a signed letter that says "Uhhhh, sorry." It's an acknowledgment that our presence caused irreparable harm. I don't at all fault the armed forces for that. Most of them serve dutifully, honorably, and probably represent us quite well. But we're guests in these villages, and we have to respect that fact -- if we want to make a positive impression that is.
we are not guests-we are fighting a "war", (at least that is what we are told) and i am guessing it is pretty hard to make a positive impression when you are occupying someone else's country.
i fault everyone involved, from the clueless leaders who decided that we could actually "win" in afghanistan, to the people who keep sending people back on yet more tours of duty(probably because it is getting harder to get new enlistees), to the soldiers who go on a rampage and murder civilians, to the media who trots these stories out and endangers the soldiers who are still there, and to the people who determine what the "payouts" are to be for themurdered family members.
if we weren't "guests" in these idiotic exercises, we wouldn't even be discussing forcing american citizens to pay 916,000 dollars for murdered family members in other countries. has any war ever been this stupid before, or are they all?
I wonder how much Obama paid the victims families of the fort hood shooting? Not saying that victims lives in the USA are more important, just curious since the payout came so fast.
I doubt any of those family members see a single penny of that money.
Typical Democrate response "There's a problem? Let's throw some money at it!"
As if this money is going to make the muslims hate us any less? Nice try BO.
And your post is a typical know-nothing partisan shot.
"Blood money" was standard practice during the Bush administration, too. It's an accepted practice in the middle east. Paying people for harm done to them is a tradition that's in the Bible.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Department spent more than $30 million in Iraq and Afghanistan in condolence and compensation for grief payments in 2003-06, mostly in Iraq.
The payments are a gesture of sympathy and remorse in cases ranging from traffic accidents to lost limbs to death.
Obviously it didn't come personally from him...don't be purposefully daft.
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