You’ve all read/seen/heard about this by now- yesterday a US soldier allegedly murdered 16 Afghan civilians, most of whom were apparently women and children. We don’t know motive or all the specifics, but the headline in the HuffPo is telling: “US Officials Seek to Contain Damage.” It seems that that is all we do these days- contain damage. The Quran burnings, urinating on dead Afghans, drone strike, secret prisons (Tor) etc. etc. Keep in mind if an Afghan civilian or member of the security service killed 16 American civilians/diplomats/contractors or even soldiers in a surprise attack we would not hesitate to call it “terrorism.”
I can’t claim to know what happened with or to the US soldier responsible, nor can I imagine how difficult and horrifying living on the front lines must be, but this is a symptom of a larger problem and unless the US starts looking in the mirror and admitting that our multiple military escapades have resulted not in more safety and security, but less, we are screwed. But clearly we haven’t realized that because the war drums are steadily getting louder as Congress, Israel and the neocons walks us off yet another cliff and it’s the men and women of the US military (and their families) who will ultimately pay the price.
US FoPo & the Middle East 
March 12, 2012 at 9:37 am
So tragic. We seem to be killing more civilians in Afghanistan than actual Taliban or Al Qaeda or whoever the enemy is supposed to be. For each child killed we probably create dozens of future terrorists.
March 14, 2012 at 1:35 am
One begins to understand what turned ordinary Germans into Nazi monsters when you read some of the stories of soldiers (like the one who committed these latest atrocities) stationed at the McChord base near Seattle — decapitating wives; setting wives on fire; waterboarding their children for not learning their ABC’s or wetting their beds, and of course the suicides…Bad enough what our military does to innocent civilians in places like Afghanistan, but the damage it does to our own troops and their families is also tragic.