Nine children among 16 dead after US serviceman attacks villagers

[Ken White]

I wonder how Americans would respond if the circumstances in this incident were replicated in the USA?

With 330M different response...

Ranging from shooting the miscreant outright to giving him money and a medal and a ticket home...

In most nations where US Troops are stationed, there is a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which delineates in excruciating detail who will try or get custody of whom for what. Tequila mentioned one where the accused was turned over to local jurisdiction, there have been others in Japan (and Okinawa) and in Korea. There have been more in all those Nations where the US retained custody for one reason or another. Much depends on how the accusation is couched and the potential penalty foreseen by the local US Judge Advocate.

Much also depends on the whims of the US Congress -- if they get fired up and go into the "protect US citizens..." mode, they can influence both the US Armed Forces and Foreign governments. Some times they do that, sometimes they do not.

In those nations where troops are serving but no SOFA exists, the US retains jurisdiction. Thus it did in Iraq for almost all our time there and IIRC, one of the sticking points in our continued presence there was a failure to arrive at a compromise for the SOFA. There is no SOFA with Afghanistan to my knowledge -- nor, I suspect is there likely to be one...

The ICJ of course, is based on the premise that signatory nations have the responsibility and right to conduct their own investigations and / or trials...

Most Nations do pretty much the same thing. IIRC, the accusations of Forces mistreatment of Iraqis in Basra resulted in trials in the UK as it appears will this one (LINK). I seem to recall a Spaniard and some Danes who also went home for trials...

Power rules, rightly or wrongly...

Added: Oops. Omitted two links:

LINK.

LINK.