Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The trail to the Panjawi district of Kandahar Province in Afghanistan, where 16 civilians were murdered in the early hours of Sunday morning, begins at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a sprawling US military facility just south of Seattle.
Here, beneath the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, around 40,000 soldiers are at any one time housed in between deployments. At 400,000 acres, and with 60,000 civilian residents, it is the largest and busiest base west of the Rockies.
Lately, it has become the most notorious. The suspect in Sunday's killings, said to be a 38-year-old sergeant with two children, is the most recent former Lewis-McChord resident whose behaviour during or after deployment has made headlines for the wrong reasons.
Two years ago, after four of the base's soldiers, led by Calvin Gibbs, were convicted of the deliberate "thrill killings" of three Afghan civilians, the forces newspaper Stars and Stripes called Lewis-McChord: "The most troubled base in the military." At Christmas, reporting on a rash of suicides – 62 since 2002 – along with soaring rates of domestic violence, drink-driving, murders, fights, robberies and drug overdoses there, the Los Angeles Times dubbed it: "A base on the brink."
The paper referred to a string of recent tragedies. They included an Iraq veteran who pleaded guilty to torture after water-boarding his seven-year-old foster child; another charged with torturing a daughter who refused to say her ABCs; and a husband who poured lighter fluid over his wife and set her on fire.
A soldier also kidnapped, tortured, and raped two women, attaching one, via cables, to a car battery and a husband murdered his wife and left her body in a bin.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments