US 'kill team' soldier who murdered unarmed Afghans escapes life sentence

24 years in prison will be prrety brutal. A quarter of your life gone. 25 years spent in a box getting an hour of sunlight a day.

How long until parole?

QFA

When was your last tour in Helmand?

Just saying that these men are conditioned to fight and murder without remorse. We create men like these.

Not saying its an excuse for what they did and they are rightly being punished but its hardly black and white.

I hate people

A couple? Its 24 years. In prison. Hardly easy is it? What they did was horrible yes but 24 years in a prison sell is hardly peachy. With a crime like this he won't have much of a chance of parole anyway.

I agree with this point. I'm not defending what this guy did, what he did was wrong and should be punished however it's easy to critisise soldiers and what they do without ever having walked in their shoes, or even their boots.

Morlock told the judge that he and the other soldiers first began plotting to murder unarmed Afghans in late 2009, several weeks before the first killing took place. To make the killings appear justified, the soldiers planned to plant weapons near the bodies of the victims, he said.

I totally disagree. There's a difference between one man cracking and losing it, to a whole group of guys planning the killing of civilians for their enjoyment. They all did it.
I replied previously post #9 to this.

Don't make excuses for them. You wouldn't make excuses for terrorists and these guys were plain sadistic murderers i.e terrorists of the worst kind.

Like I said I'm not make excuses for him or anyone like him, I was merely commenting on the fact that I agreed with Aj12's point that soldiers are trained to fight and who go through a lot are often conditioned to react a certain way. This should be remembered in certain circumstances.

As it stands though this is not one of those circumstances.

Certainly not, I agree. This is different.

While bradley manning gets up to 52
For goodness sake, it's no wonder that the world hates the American government

I was waiting for the first moron who would make a comparison between Manning; looks like it came quicker than I even thought

Manning also broke treason laws which put many more lives at risk than guy, not to mention political setbacks which could have helped thousands more. Oh, and don't be so ignorant as taking this statement (i.e. Manning did something worse than this solider) to be not condoning such terrible acts - I hope the guy serves every second of his 24 years and realises the heinous crimes he has committed.

at the end of the day it just shows how America will put its own interest before justice. Perhaps America will be more responsible in the future.
Fact is, it's not just.

Yes, b/c we didn't know this before - a country is acting in its own national interest. Oh the shock, oh the horror!

With leaking such information, a large majority of which has nothing to do with "shedding light", all Manning has done is put lives at risk and set back political advances for the betterment of society in some areas. I'm all for him shedding light on abuses, but he didn't do just that - he did something ultimately worse.

So, they should face the repercussions
If a country acts in its own interest it should face the consequences for its actions, america isn't above the law. I could say the same for al Qaeda, terrorism was part of the reason iraq was invaded, a majority, which has nothing to do with terrorism, were involved in a war they didn't want.