(Soviet Forces withdraw from Afghanistan, 1989. Photo courtesy BBC.)

Man, the word was depressing this morning. I have been doing a slow boil anyway since the revelations of the burning of some book at Bagram Air Base began to spread, and the subsequent murders of ISAF personnel by aggrieved Afghan soldiers.

It was intolerable, if regrettable. I mean, other books are burned in all sorts of places without causing public acts of slaughter, but we are supposed to ignore that and be more sensitive. That is one of the aspects of this struggle that is so frustrating. We are expected to ignore obvious things and believe the impossible.

Maybe that façade is cracking. In fact, there appears to be an outbreak of insensitivity, first with the Marines who appeared to be disrespecting the corpses of fighters who had only moments before been attempting to kill them.

This latest though is as horrific as it is unbelievable. The word this morning is that a US Army Sergeant left the confines of his Forward Operating Base and systematically killed sixteen Afghan civilians, nine of them children, and four of them girls under the age of six.

Investigations are in progress in the three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province where the savagery occurred. After going door-to-door, the NCO allegedly gathered most of the bodies together and attempted to burn them.

Sounds like the man snapped, though I am prepared to wait for the results of the investigation.

All the predicable stuff went along with the awful news, which somehow is much worse than a drone strike going awry with collateral damage. Maybe there is something truly evil about the intention to murder that adds to the revulsion.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks. Both President Obama and SECDEF Panetta are apologizing, as they have about everything else in the last few months, but this is something that is so far beyond the pale that it calls into question everything we know about this war and what we have done to all the people involved.

First reports suggest the Sergeant was on his first deployment to Afghanistan, but has deployed to Iraq several times.

It makes me wonder if we are systematically breaking the force. This struggle is the longest in our nation’s history, though not the bloodiest. Perhaps the all-volunteer force is not the one that we should have ground up in the discretionary war in Iraq. Perhaps the more modest investment in blood and treasure in Afghanistan should have been more carefully examined; after all, I recall Mr. Rumsfeld proclaiming it was all over a decade ago.

During the Soviet occupation about a million Afghans lost their lives as the Red Army tried to impose control over a proud and fractious tribal population. The Red Army lost many times the people who have died in the ranks of the Americans- as many as 15,000 Soviet soldiers died in their decade-long episode of The Great Game.

Confronting a bleak landscape abroad and at home, Soviet authorities hailed their withdrawal from Afghanistan as a victory, not having much choice.

I suspect we are about on the brink of doing that, too. With the prospects of additional missions being dropped on a fragile force elsewhere, we might want to take a breather, wouldn’t you think?

I remember the consequences. It was 1989. I remember it well. I was on cruise, or getting ready to go, just as I was on cruise when the Russians went in for a short and decisive military operation that did not turn out that way. We were occupied with the Iranians and our hostages at our embassy. The Russians figured we were too distracted to do much, and they were right.

But then, a decade later, I remember the statement from then-Afghan President Sayid Mohammed Najibullah: “I express my appreciation to the people and government of the Soviet Union for all-round assistance and continued solidarity in defending Afghanistan.”

I don’t know if current President Hamid Karzai views things the same way, but I suspect there are those who are thinking that we should just declare victory now.

But of course, the civil war continued following the Soviet withdrawal. The lap-dog Najibullah government collapsed of its own weight in 1992 and provided a vacuum that helped breed the bacillus that caused 9/11, among other murderous outrages.

I wonder what is next? I think we are about at the end of this particular mountain road. Closing time, Gentlemen.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com