Most of the underpinnings for
disaster have been hiding in plain sight in the kill zones of Afghanistan much
longer than the Pentagon will admit. Multiple
deployments, nonstop asymmetric warfare, circular mistrust of US and Afghan
counterparts, sliding time-lines and phantom end-states point to more frayed
psyches, and hate for hate atrocities -
kill teams, desecrating bodies and
religious artifacts, night raids resulting in injury or death and the wanton
destruction of property, most spun as the acts of rogue soldiers.
Can this possibly be reflective of who
we are?
In a recent article in The American Scholar , Afghanistan: The Gathering Menace , by
embedded journalist Neil Shea, an Army sergeant encapsulates the mood, if not
the state of our combat force in Southwest Asia in 2012, trapped in the midst
of a failed policy for far too long:
"This is where I come to do
f*****-up things."
His face had been clear and smooth,
his smile almost shy. It was a statement of happy expectation, as though
Afghanistan were a playground. He was
the de facto leader of a platoon I will call Destroyer, and although he is a
real person, not a composite, I have heard his words in many variations, from
many American combat troops. But he and
some of his men were the first I had met who seemed very near to committing the
dumb and vicious acts that we call war crimes.
If this is not who we are, it is
what we are becoming.
In most criminal cases, multiple
versions of the truth may exist, even in Kandahar province. As the defense team sifts through the detritus
of forensics and motive, it is likely that long overdue light will be focused,
not diffused, on the grit of causation in a failed state, and not solely
Afghanistan but US intervention in Southwest Asia and elsewhere.
However long it takes before the
defense rests, there will be more than ample culpability to go around, but
nowhere near enough justice -- and certainly not for Afghan villager Abdul
Samad's nine children, whose worst nightmares were realized before they could
even yawn or wipe the sleep from their eyes.
Then again this just might be one of
those times when even an unrivaled counsel for the defense will have to settle
for a higher power to sort things out.
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