Man, this sounds a bit like our Compean & Ramos border guard railroad job to me... ...but with a new "medication" twist this time.

http://wedapeeps.blogspot.com/
 

PFC David Lawrence is an American soldier from Indiana. David is 20
years old. He is accused of premeditated murder for the alleged
shooting of Mullah Muhibullah on Oct. 17 while guarding him in Kandahar
province, Afghanistan. Mullah Muhibullah was a senior Taliban commander
and had been captured by U.S. forces the day before his death.
Muhibullah's death was announced by an angry Afghan President Hamid
Karzai on Oct. 19. Formal charges were filed against PFC Lawrence the
same day, Oct. 19.

PFC Lawrence was medivaced out of Afghanistan
on Oct. 24, and he arrived at Fort Carson, Colo. on Nov. 6. Though the
Army had ordered a sanity inquiry on Nov. 5 to determine PFC Lawrence’s
mental status and whether he is suffering from a major mental defect or
disease, the Army decided not to wait for that answer before initiating
the court-martial process in PFC Lawrence’s case. When the Army
scheduled PFC Lawrence’s Article 32 Investigation (the equivalent to a
preliminary hearing) for Nov. 29, the defense submitted two separate
requests for a delay to enable the psychiatrists to determine PFC
Lawrence’s mental status. Both delay requests were denied.

"We
are going to an Article 32 for a kid who is hearing voices," James
Culp, PFC Lawrence's attorney, said. The Article 32 Investigation
proceeded on Nov 29 and 30. As a result of his medication regiment,
which includes the strongest does available of the drug prescribed for
the treatment of schizophrenia, PFC Lawrence regularly fell asleep
during the legal hearing that would ultimately decide if he will be
court-martialed for premeditated murder. The "minimum" sentence for
premeditated murder in the U.S. military is confinement for life. The
maximum sentence is the death by execution.

Mr. Culp also said
he was concerned the Army might be rushing the case to court-martial to
appease Karzai. On Dec. 3, President Barak Obama made a surprise visit
to Afghanistan to calm the tensions between the U.S. and Afghanistan
that had been exacerbated by the killing of Taliban Commander Mullah
Muhibullah. On the same day it was reported by Reuters that President
Karzai and his brother have received large payments from the Taliban
for the release of key Taliban prisoners. Coincidentally, on July 7,
2007, the Pajhwok Afghan News Agency reported that Muhibullah, Mullah
Omar’s secretary, had already been captured. Neither U.S. nor
Afghanistan officials have released any information about the process
by which Muhibullah re-entered the stream of insurgency to kill and
maim U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan.

Less than a week
before the shooting, PFC Lawrence was examined by psychiatrists and
given drugs for depression and sleeplessness. Days later, he was put on
guard duty at a detention center in the Arghandab district of Kandahar
province, despite having no training for it.

Even before David
requested to be taken for treatment to a combat stress clinic in
Kandahar, David was reporting to his mother and father that he was
hearing voices that were “freaking him out.” David subsequently
reported to his family that his reoccurring hallucinations include
seeing soldiers who had died in Afghanistan, including Capt. Dale
Goetz. He told his father "... he could see the chaplain with only half
a head remaining," Capt. Dale Goetz was a chaplain in the 4th Infantry
Division for the 66th Armor Regiment’s 1st Battalion based out of Ft.
Carson, Colorado. Capt. Goetz is the first Army chaplain killed in
combat in 40 years. Capt. Goetz was David's friend. It was a known fact
that David was closer to the chaplain than anyone else in the platoon.

This
young man comes from a wonderful family and has very loving, caring
parents who are undoubtedly afraid of what lies ahead. This is going to
be a lengthy battle. Costs for specialists, travels to and from
Colorado and all the costs involved with repeated weeklong stays there,
medical evaluations and doctors are adding up.

This family needs help. Please show your support of PFC David Lawrence by making a contribution to his defense fund:

United Community Bank
19710 Stateline Road
Lawrenceburg, IN 47025

Please
make checks payable to "FOB PFC David W. Lawrence" Contributions can
also be sent via paypal using the e-mail address:
pfcdavidlawrence@yahoo.com

And the timing of all this seems to play into this (story from Dec 1st 2010)...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AT2WG2010120

Afghan security
forces are freeing captured senior Taliban for payment or political
motives, with President Hamid Karzai and his powerful brother among
those authorizing and requesting releases.

The practice is so systemic
that the Taliban have a committee focused on getting their fighters out
of jail. It undermines the deterrent effect of arrest and the potential
of the prisoner population as a card to play in peace talks, analysts
say.

The releases, which were
confirmed to Reuters by several sources familiar with a range of cases,
also raise questions about the capacity and political will of Afghan
security forces meant to be taking over from foreign troops starting
next year.

U.S. forces will begin
drawing down numbers from next July and NATO hopes to meet Karzai's
2014 target for all security to be provided by Afghan police and
military.

But cases uncovered by
Reuters including that of Ghulam Haidar, a top insurgent in the
southern Taliban heartland of Kandahar, suggest that a web of complex
loyalties and widespread corruption are undermining the fight against
the insurgency.

Ghulam Haidar,
meaning "servant of God," is a common name in Afghanistan so when
Canadian forces turned one of the most dangerous men in Kandahar city
over to their Afghan counterparts in March, they may not have realized
who he was.

Days later he was
walking free again, according to three sources who have investigated
prisoner releases or have seen documents about Haidar's capture. They
asked not to be named because they are not authorized to release
information.

"They took this guy
into custody in mid-March, but he was out again in a few days. This is
a classic example of what has been happening," one former Western
official told Reuters.

A
Kabul-based source with links to Western intelligence services
confirmed Haidar was a Taliban leader known to have a major role in the
insurgency around the city.

Yet his freedom was requested by Karzai's younger brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council.

Dubbed
"AWK" by Westerners working in Kandahar, he has an iron grip on the
city but his loyalties are considered less solid. A U.S. government
cable dated 2009, released by WikiLeaks, described him as a corrupt
drug trafficker.

"When Ghulam
Haidar was in (Afghan) custody AWK asked for his release," said a
second source, who rejected the idea that Haidar could have been set
free because he was a double agent.

"If
the Afghan government had good agents within the Taliban things should
have gotten better -- but that is obviously not the case," the source
added.

Ahmad Wali Karzai said he had never asked for the release of a Taliban prisoner and had not heard of Ghulam Haidar.

"I am the person most wanted by the Taliban, with nine suicide attacks against me," he told Reuters by telephone.

Grrr... (I'm still in favor of nuke-n-pave)

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