When a child decides to run amok in someone else's home, it is important for his or her parents to apologize on behalf of the child and the family. Similarly, it was a good move for the United States to make amends with Afghanistan after several U.S. soldiers murdered a multitude of Afghani civilians.
It is difficult to acknowledge such madness as a reality, and it becomes even harder to appreciate its gravity when the crime was committed by someone on our side while fighting under the pretext of preventing tyranny and terror.
To be fair, nobody that lives stateside can truly understand the stresses of the Afghan war. Films and media can only attempt to recreate the constant anxiety over middle-of-the-night attacks and the spontaneity of a hidden bomb.
Even the subtlest nuances of war can push some soldiers over the edge. Imagine being armed to the teeth at all times and wearing a uniform that subscribes its wearer to a cause that involves killing a lot of people.
Perhaps, to varying degrees, they are all victims of subconscious mental change and posttraumatic stress.
But thousands of United States soldiers are involved in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and most of them can deal with wartime stress without their anxiety manifesting itself violently. Many of them look at Calvin Gibbs and Jeremy Morlock with no sympathy at all.
The horrifying accounts of random civilian brutality could make one's skin crawl. Though not always the direct murderer, Gibbs is being tried as the master conspirator, having threatened some of his fellow soldiers into contributing to the senseless killing.
The media has subtly suggested that these killings were a result of Gibbs' persistent hashish habit, but such reasoning is without logical ground, and it was a pathetic attempt to excuse such madness by blaming murderous insanity on a relatively benign drug.
As far as where the United States should stand on the issue, it can go two ways: we can blindly stick by our troops in a hopeless attempt to save face, or we can acknowledge the crime and distance our military and ourselves from the rash behavior of a few rogues.
We are glad that the military has chosen the latter. Taking tertiary responsibility for the murders was an important step in acknowledging such brutal crimes against humanity, and it shows that we can only maintain the guise of civilization if we admit to our mistakes and fix the kinks in the line of command.
Though some will try to make a case to defend the soldiers in question, excuses for their crimes seem ridiculous. Trauma is a factor in the job that they signed up for, and most soldiers take great responsibility with the power they possess with their weapons.
E-mail: editorial@ubspectrum.com
