slimvictor
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Nearly every combat outpost in Afghanistan is automatically part of a volatile mix: a hardened enemy, increasingly sophisticated and deadly land mines, nervous young soldiers, powerful weapons and machinery, suicide bombers, the stress of multiple deployments, searing heat, unfriendly locals, unfamiliar languages.
The U.S. Army has concluded that adding alcohol to that mix is unwise.
But now, with the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, alcohol has been suggested as a possible causal factor in the killings, along with other stressors. Inquiries into the tragedy are ongoing; the facts remain unclear.
The banning of alcohol in war zones became an issue when the United States military entered combat situations in Muslim countries that frown on drinking, first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. (Still, alcohol was easy to get in the Green Zone in Baghdad, for example, or in the more tolerant Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.)
The military’s General Order No. 1 prohibits the possession or consumption of alcohol in five countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. When I embedded with U.S. Army cavalry units operating out of Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan, alcohol was banned for the American soldiers there. Consequently, the pile of empty cans of nonalcoholic beer at the base was routinely the size of a couple of Abrams tanks.
Still, alcohol finds its way onto bases and outposts, either passed from soldiers from other countries, smuggled in from local markets or delivered in care packages from home. Sometimes the alcohol is disguised as mouthwash — usually gin or vodka doctored with blue-green food coloring.
The military has identified the alleged killer in Afghanistan as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a 38-year-old father of two who had been wounded twice in combat over the course of four deployments. My colleague James Dao reports that a senior government official said Sergeant Bales had been drinking alcohol before the killings.
“When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues — he just snapped,” the official said.
Sergeant Bales’s attorney has disputed those assertions, telling reporters that the sergeant’s marriage was sound, and he questioned the reports about drinking.
Carter, a reader of the At War blog, made this comment:
“The military rolled out the feeble ‘he’d been drinking’ excuse as if that would explain why a person goes out and kill 17 civilians. It goes without saying that even the most malicious-minded people aren’t led to murder innocent strangers simply as a result of drinking. What’s more, if he’d drunk more than a couple drinks, it’s unlikely he’d have had the stamina and marksmanship to kill, then haul all these bodies outside.”
cont at
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/when-alcohol-invades-a-war-zone/
The U.S. Army has concluded that adding alcohol to that mix is unwise.
But now, with the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, alcohol has been suggested as a possible causal factor in the killings, along with other stressors. Inquiries into the tragedy are ongoing; the facts remain unclear.
The banning of alcohol in war zones became an issue when the United States military entered combat situations in Muslim countries that frown on drinking, first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. (Still, alcohol was easy to get in the Green Zone in Baghdad, for example, or in the more tolerant Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.)
The military’s General Order No. 1 prohibits the possession or consumption of alcohol in five countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. When I embedded with U.S. Army cavalry units operating out of Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan, alcohol was banned for the American soldiers there. Consequently, the pile of empty cans of nonalcoholic beer at the base was routinely the size of a couple of Abrams tanks.
Still, alcohol finds its way onto bases and outposts, either passed from soldiers from other countries, smuggled in from local markets or delivered in care packages from home. Sometimes the alcohol is disguised as mouthwash — usually gin or vodka doctored with blue-green food coloring.
The military has identified the alleged killer in Afghanistan as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a 38-year-old father of two who had been wounded twice in combat over the course of four deployments. My colleague James Dao reports that a senior government official said Sergeant Bales had been drinking alcohol before the killings.
“When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues — he just snapped,” the official said.
Sergeant Bales’s attorney has disputed those assertions, telling reporters that the sergeant’s marriage was sound, and he questioned the reports about drinking.
Carter, a reader of the At War blog, made this comment:
“The military rolled out the feeble ‘he’d been drinking’ excuse as if that would explain why a person goes out and kill 17 civilians. It goes without saying that even the most malicious-minded people aren’t led to murder innocent strangers simply as a result of drinking. What’s more, if he’d drunk more than a couple drinks, it’s unlikely he’d have had the stamina and marksmanship to kill, then haul all these bodies outside.”
cont at
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/when-alcohol-invades-a-war-zone/
