The "Other"

Here's a nauseating, and seemingly well substantiated horror story from the Washington Post.

For weeks, 25-year-old Staff Sergeant Calvin R. Gibbs wound up a group of soldiers from 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker [armoured infantry] Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division to randomly target and kill an Afghan civilian, and get away with it. On 15 January 2010 a solitary Afghan man, Gul Mudin, approached them in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. One soldier tossed a grenade on the ground to create the impression of an attack. The others opened fire.

According to charging documents, the unprovoked, fatal attack was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones.

Forty-two years ago a new "shake and bake" subaltern leading a platoon of conscripts massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. The Army tried to cover it up, but when it was finally investigated the thing that emerged most clearly was that the soldiers did not regard the "gooks" as human beings.

A secondary factor was that, having lost comrades to booby traps set by an enemy who never gave them the catharsis of battle, the soldiers were possessed by an indiscriminate desire for vengeance. Not just against the "gooks" - they wanted pay-back for being where they were, fighting a war they knew they could not win.

Sound familiar? There is a limit to how much stress any human being can cope with. I would like to know the incidence of self-inflicted wounds and if any officer "fragging" is taking place, but this incident argues very strongly that even without considering the appalling cost of the continuing conflict to the Afghans, there is a prima facie case for the US Army to pull out for its own institutional health.