http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5327683.ece
If this is true it’s beyond rediculous.
YEAAAA…GO CANADA GO!!!
(FROM THE NEWSPAPER TODAY)
Canadian governor of Kanadahar faces uphill battle
B.C. resident Tooryalai Wesa grew up in war-torn Kandahar and went to school with Presiden Hamid Karzai
By Darah HansenDecember 19, 2008 8:25 AM
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - Tooryalai Wesa, an Afghan-Canadian who this week was named governor of Kandahar province, says he is eager to get to work restoring peace and stability to a region long marred by violence and corruption.
But residents of Kandahar say they are wary of a man whom few know personally, and wonder if the 58-year-old agricultural expert from British Columbia is up to the difficult and dangerous job that lies ahead of him back home in Afghanistan.
“He must be brave as a lion and accept all the challenges he will face. We need that kind of a man,” Hajj-Ghulam Hazrat, a 45-year-old businessman in Kandahar city, said when asked about Wesa’s recent appointment to the position of governor.
Sheer Ahmad, a 40-year-old city shopkeeper, agreed.
“I don’t know the upcoming governor and his working experience, but I can say we need a strong and firm man to fight against corruption, fight against prejudice and injustice, and work for the war-torn province,” Ahmad said.
Wesa, who grew up in Kandahar and attended school with the country’s current president, Hamid Karzai, said he is confident in the skills he will bring to the job.
In particular, he said his dual citizenship makes him uniquely qualified to work in a region where Canada has more than 2,500 troops engaged in battle with Taliban insurgents.
“I can talk easily and discuss everything in both a Canadian environment and an Afghan environment,” he told Canwest News Service in a telephone interview from Kabul where he met with Karzai Thursday.
“I always want to be the bridge between these two people,” he said.
Wesa left Afghanistan with his wife and children in 1991, eventually moving to Canada in 1995.
For the past four years, Wesa has worked as associate researcher at the University of British Columbia Institute of Asian Studies and has travelled extensively to southern Afghanistan where he’s been involved in developing regional farming efforts and strengthening local governance.
Wesa listed security as his top priority, stating that “without security you can do nothing.”
The southern province is also in dire need of infrastructure, including roads and bridges that will allow area farmers better access to markets, he said.
Wesa also cited employment as a concern and said he will push for the creation of jobs for Kandaharis in ongoing reconstruction projects in the region.
Wesa is expected to be sworn in as governor Saturday in Kandahar.
He replaces outgoing governor Rahmatullah Raufi, who was fired after only three months on the job.
Raufi’s sudden departure has left a bitter taste for many Kandahar residents who complain the political instability of the governor’s office has meant much-needed progress in the region simply hasn’t happened.
“The fired governor made lots of promises that he would bring peace and stability to Kandahar, but nothing was seen or improved. He was gone and we are in the same situation,” said Sheer Ahmad.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
A Canadian soldier who risks his life to defend the stonage people of Afghanistan is charged for murder as per article in today’s Toronto Star. What a shame. This happens all too often, but tis was not like the Mai Lai massacre. What next, Canadian soldiers will be sent to jail for not saying good morning to them backward goat herders. Oh brother!@
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A Canadian soldier who was on hand for a bloody battle against the Taliban in October has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of a presumed enemy fighter, military officials announced today.
Capt. Robert Semrau is accused of shooting, “with intent to kill,” an unarmed man in Helmand province, where Afghan soldiers, their Canadian mentors and British troops had been defending the capital of Lashkar Gah from insurgent attack.
Semrau is a member of the Operational Mentor and Liaison Team, the Canadian military unit that mentors the fledgling Afghan National Army.
The major crimes unit of Canada’s military police charged Semrau on Wednesday – the same day the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service announced an investigation into a death that took place “on or about” Oct. 19 in Helmand province.
Semrau is being held in military police custody before being returned to Canada, where a military judge will decide whether he remains behind bars. He faces 25 years in prison if convicted.
Military officials at Kandahar Airfield are declining further comment.
At the time of the incident, Canadian military mentors from the OMLT were among those in Helmand for the bloody three-day defence of Lashkar Gah. Also taking part were British forces, who are deployed extensively in Helmand.
Afghan and foreign troops eventually retook the Nad Ali district centre, which had been held by insurgents, after a three-day fight. That battle, which also involved air strikes, ended Oct. 18. Afghan and NATO officials claimed at least 100 Taliban died in the fighting.
An unrelated NATO news release dated Oct. 19, 2008 – the date of the alleged incident – quotes Semrau himself talking about the experience of working with Afghan soldiers.
“Working with the ANA presents some challenges; you have to be very patient, but when you get down to the bottom of it, they are just like us and like to kid around and joke,” Semrau – identified as an OMLT “commanding mentor” – is quoted as saying.
“They’re just like soldiers all around the world and are some good guys.”
On Thursday, an Afghan army general who was on hand for the battle of Lashkar Gah said he had heard none of the allegations of ``inappropriate conduct" surrounding the presumed insurgent’s death.
Gen. Sher Muhammad Zazai said the Afghan army killed so many Taliban fighters during the fight, it’s impossible to know how they all died.
The CFNIS examines all incidents involving Canadian military personnel or property in Canada and abroad.
Like it or not, if the guy he shot was unarmed and he knew it, that’s murder. The Geneva and Hague conventions exist for good reason, and killing a (presumably surrendered) enemy violates every law and custom of war.
YA, but come on. Don’t tell me you never heard of Tunnel Vision Syndrome.
These American and canadian Soldiers are on their toes over there WIRED and Ripped by the unpredictibility of being killed themselves. the Canadian Soldier was finishing a tense fire fight with Taliban and he saw a man and killed him by accident cause he was so wired.
What about them AMERICANS that machine gunned a car full of women and children last year when the car they ordered to slow down sped up due to language issues and being scared,. Did they get chjarges for Murder???NO!.
Oh, please, this stuff happens all the time in War, and unless the soldier pre-meditated the murder I hionetly don’t see how murder charges can be brought upon a soldier for acting jittery or even stupid by shooting a civilian. I don’t have pity for soldiers who deliberatly shoot civilians like you say but in war these accidents are acceptable. Like It or Lump it:)
So you’ve got a solider who shoots anything that moves in a firefight. Please, lock him up and throw away the key. People like that are dangerous.
I’ve done it myself in training. Two of us had just overrun an enemy position and were searching a prisoner (I was covering), when he suddenly started attacking my oppo, so I “shot” him. Despite the fact that several weapons had been taken off him already during the search, he was unarmed at the time I shot him. I absolutely got my head ripped off for that one (rightly), and was told that had I done that in Iraq I would have been charged with murder.
PDF, If I was hiding in a fox hole and you accidentally shot me, then I would forgive you, cause it would be an honour to be shot by a man of your calibre!
That should be manslaughter at best. And since the stress of such a situation in real life is immense a court would usually apply mitigating circumstances. You could of course always become a pawn sacrifice. :twisted:
A prisoner who attacks his captors in a battlefield situation might be regarded as having resumed his status as a combatant and therefore become liable to be shot.
In a training exercise I was guarding disarmed prisoners, one of whom decided to be a hero and tried to wrest my M60 from me (which I think might have been an L2A2 getting into the spirit of things by pretending to be an M60). At one point I had the muzzle under his chin and even with a blank could have ruined his day, and the rest of his life.
If that had been a real situation, I reckon I would have been justified in taking his head off, to avoid the risk of him getting my weapon and turning it on me and my comrades, and or facilitating the escape of the prisoners. If it had been a real situation, I would have shot him. Actually, in a real situation I probably would have shot him at the last moment before he could grapple with me. If I’m armed I’m not there to play tug of war and frig about with unarmed combat, which I might lose, with someone who is going to shoot me and my comrades if he gets the main section weapon off me. Doing anything but using my weapon to elmininate the threat seems to me to be a dereliction of my duty to preserve the main section weapon and to not expose my comrades to the risk of having it turned on them.
I think, as I think Herman is arguing, allowance has to be made for the whole situation viewed against the context of warlike operations. After all, an awful lot of shooting in war would be murder in civilian terms, notably all attacks, ambushes and sniper shootings, but we don’t apply civilian criminal law to such events or half the army would be locked up.
Your situation was different and perhaps you could have buttstroked the prisoner if he wasn’t presenting an immediate threat, but if he had a chance of taking your mate’s weapon before you could get there I don’t see shooting him as the wrong choice.
Everything depends upon the circumstances, including the surrounding events. For example, if you’re still under fire in a continuing battle and it’s just you and your mate with the prisoner it’s rather different to after the battle when battlefield pressures aren’t upon you.
While proper treatment of prisoners must be taught in training, I don’t know that it’s a great idea to inhibit effective responses by making soldiers worry about being charged with murder when confronted with split second decisions in real warlike operations. There’s a world of difference between shooting an unarmed prisoner out of hand and shooting one who is stll fighting.
This time a Civilian Woman is machine gunned by the Americans in Iraq and on life support. I don’t think the Americans who did it should be charged with attempted murder. These things happen. In war accidents happen.
Todays article from Toronto Sun Newspaper:
BAGHDAD – American soldiers shot and wounded a woman – identified by an Iraqi TV station as one of its producers – after she failed to heed warnings to stop near a Baghdad checkpoint recently targeted by suicide and car bombs, military officials said Saturday.
The U.S. military said in a statement that the woman was “acting erratic” and didn’t respond to warnings from Iraqi and American troops near the checkpoint in the central neighbourhood of Jadiriyah on Thursday.
“Concerned by the danger she might present to the security forces and civilians, given her repeated failure to respond to warnings, soldiers fired two rounds, wounding the woman,” the U.S. military said.
The Biladi TV station, which is owned by former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, identified the woman as Hadeel Emad, 25.
Station spokesman Muhsin Kadhum said Emad had just left the station and was crossing the street to get a taxi when she was shot.
“She has hearing problems, and she didn’t hear the warnings,” Kadhum said. “She was wearing a long coat and carried nothing in her hands.”
A medical official at al-Yarmouk hospital said Emad was in critical condition.
An Iraqi police officer said Emad was walking with her husband and ignored warnings from U.S. troops to stop.
Also yesterday, an Iraqi official said two people were killed and another was wounded when a bomb they were concealing in their car exploded in the north of Iraq.
My Father Just Got back from Afghanistan he is a Master Warrant Officer in the RCHA. this was his 4th tour but he said it was hell.