Why do they hate us? Why are they upset at us for burning their Holy book? Why would they be mad at us for pissing on their dead countrymen? Why are they making a big deal about our soldiers collecting dead body parts? Why? Why? Why?

Here's the latest:

A lone American serviceman slipped away from his base in southern Afghanistan before dawn Sunday and went on a methodical house-to-house shooting spree in a nearby village, killing 16 people, nearly all of them women and children, according to Afghan officials who visited the scene.

Read more here

I'm sure Rush Limbaugh, Pam Geller, Michelle Malkin and the other troop loving American patriots will have a handy excuse why this soldier lost it. "He was blowing off steam," they'll say. "He was reacting to the terrible violence he saw committed by the Taliban," others will claim.

Of course the United States government will condemn the action, and claim that it is an isolated incident that does not reflect the high moral integrity of the U.S. military.

Bullshit!

While readers may rightly level contempt at the U.S. soldier who committed this atrocity, I would urge them to channel that anger towards the one's who are truly responsible.

Last year, Der Spiegel published gruesome photographs showing American troops posing with the corpses of murdered and mutilated Afghan civilians. In the April, 11 2011 edition of American Free Press, I made this observation:

(Note: This is an unedited version from my own files)

In typical fashion, the U.S. government has distanced itself from the atrocities and laid the blame solely at the feet of the young men it trained to kill. The photographs depict "actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States Army", said Army Col. Thomas Collins in an official statement from the Pentagon. "We apologize for the distress these photos cause."

That statement is hauntingly reminiscent of so many others issued by the U.S. in the wake of similar tragedies. Following the Abu Ghraib scandal, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld offered up an almost identical apology when he appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and said, "To those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of the U.S. Armed Forces, I offer my deepest apology. It was inconsistent with the values of our nation, it was inconsistent with the teachings of the military to the men and women of the armed forces, and it was certainly fundamentally un-American."

Contrary to the claims made in these statements, such atrocities seem very consistent with the manner in which American troops conduct themselves in the foreign countries where they've been deployed. Aside from these latest incidents in Afghanistan and the well known atrocities that were carried out at Abu Ghraib—where prisoners were physically, psychologically and sexually tortured by their American captors—several other callous acts have been documented in recent years; suggesting that a sadistic culture of violence is epidemic within the ranks of our armed service personnel.

In 2007, U.S. soldiers aboard an Apache helicopter repeatedly opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians in Baghdad, leaving two men dead and several others severely injured, including two children. Leaked footage of the killings contained audio where the soldiers can be heard celebrating the deaths and laughing as a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the dead. Then, in 2008, a Marine on patrol in Iraq was video taped throwing a puppy over a cliff while being cheered on by his fellow soldiers.

What is particularly disturbing about these acts is that they are not just carried out by one disturbed individual, but by groups of them, who all seem to share the same psychosis. This contradicts the claim by the U.S. that these are isolated incidents carried out by rogue elements. The only reason they appear isolated is because they have been made notorious by the video, audio and photographic evidence that has exposed them to the light of day.

Meanwhile, thousands more civilian deaths go unexplained. In Afghanistan alone, in excess of 2,700 civilians were killed in 2010—up 15% from 2009.
   
Many of these casualties cannot be blamed on young soldiers, but by the ruthless policies carried out under the direction of the highest-ranking military commanders. One of the most vicious and despised tactics currently employed by the U.S. are ‘night raids.'

Though the U.S. continues to fear-monger about the possible repercussions that the "Kill Team" photographs may spark, it is not likely to manifest itself inside Afghanistan. These people do not need photographs to remind them of the horrors of American occupation. They see these things with their own eyes, and the indelible image that it leaves on their minds.