The Friend of our Enemy is our Enemy

A few hours have passed and the facts surrounding the murder of several Afghan women and children by an apparently disturbed American soldier are becoming more clear.    So too are the predictable statements of our enemies there.  Not surprisingly, the even more predictable statements of our friends are heard loudly as well.  The Karzai government, feckless always and corruptly incompetent on its better days, was, as expected, of no support to the American mission.  He, his ministers and his pseudo-parliamentary cabal, tacitly supported the Taliban's assertion that all Americans are mentally ill and, to a man and woman, fully capable of such moral transgressions.

It surprises me that Karzai would pander to the Taliban.  As soon as we pack our tent stakes, humvees, bags of free flowing American dollars and high tail it the heck out of Afghanistan, Karzai's head will shortly be displayed prominently on a pole in downtown Kabul.   I suspect it also may be used as a soccer ball by Kabul's kids.   You would think he'd want us to stick around a while.

After we leave and the flies are buzzing around Karzai's desiccated corpse, the Taliban, setting the high bar for morality to which we should all aspire, will soon be back to its old tricks of further reducing women to a class one peg lower than, say, a dog or goat.   Their holy book, naturally, will be elevated to its expected level more sacred than a human life.

I am certain that the offending soldier will receive the full and just deserts of his despicable act in front of a jury of his peers.  He warrants the very best care of our psychiatric practice and the full weight of the military's criminal justice system.  

In the meantime, I wanted to take the opportunity to speak for those who no longer can.  I wanted to show you a picture of another American soldier.  He represents almost 2,000 men and women like him who Mr. Karzai and the Taliban both believe are all mentally and morally bankrupt and could care less about the Afghan people.  A caption, one hopes, is unnecessary.