The horrible event in Kandahar last week of the slaughter of nearly an entire family by a member of the U.S. military provokes so many thoughts about the war and war atrocities.

My first reaction is of course shock and dismay that any human being could commit such an act and then because of the non transparent policy of the military, wondering if we are getting the true story since our only source is the military.

Unfortunately, according to many free lance journalists in Afghanistan and Iraq, these types of atrocities are more commonplace than we realize or are reported in the U.S. press. When an innocent family is killed by U.S. forces and there is more than one soldier involved it is justified by it being an act of war and the perpetrators were ostensibly looking for the enemy, but if a soldier acts alone he is labeled a deranged psychopath. Here is an example of what often happens in rural villages in both Iraq and Afghanistan as reported by Neil Shea a freelance reporter who has been covering Iraq and Afghanistan since 2006 for Stars and Stripes and the Christian Science Monitor. In a recent article titled "Afghanistan A Gathering Menace" published in the American Scholar he reports that troops on patrol need a place to bed down and try to find an abandoned house but failing that they either pay a family to move out or demand that they be allowed to stay in that home. Fearing that their neighbors or the Taliban will think they are U.S collaborators they refuse and are then subjected to abuse, anger and many times murder by the soldiers. Ian also points out that in such an unconventional war with no purpose and no end soldiers are in such limbo that these actions seem justifiable and are almost enjoyed. Many of these men hate the people, hate the country and have been deployed too any times so that their mental states are severely impaired and they simply are at their wits end.

These endless sense-less wars are taking an enormous toll on the military and the reputation of the United States. What other civil nation has soldiers who urinate on dead bodies, burn holy books, go on killing patrols and bring back human remains as trophies. What other nation has soldiers who massacre entire families?

The answer in part, I feel stems from the society we Americans live in and who and how the military recruits. In the days of the draft we got a large cross section of the population but now many who enlist feel that it is the only way they will ever gain financial security and perhaps educational opportunities. Because this nation of ours has become a nation of intolerance and hate mongers who fear people whose religion or beliefs are different from ours, I think it almost makes killing those people OK in the mind of a person who has grown up hearing that kind of rhetoric and has been trained by the military to kill. We have people such as Rush Limbaugh thinking it is perfectly fine to call an intelligent articulate woman who is dedicated to helping women protect their health, a slut and a prostitute simply because he disagrees with her policies. We have religious leaders who stage Koran burnings, we have the New York police department illegally in cahoots with the CIA spying on innocent Muslims. We have countless untruthful mass emailings telling people that The Nation of Islam is determined to take over America and wipe out all other religions. So if all this goes on at home why would our soldiers not simply carry this kind of thinking to Afghanistan and commit these horrible acts, especially if one of their own is killed by Al Queda or the Taliban.

It will be very interesting to see how this man who has confessed to the slaughter in Kandahar is treated compared to Bradley Manning, the whistle blowing hero. The killer's attorney has already done the talk show rounds trying to garner sympathy for him. I will bet that he is not kept naked in a cell for months without contact from lawyers or family. Bradley Manning was trying to prevent these types of crimes from happening and then HE is treated like a criminal and his persecution and abominable treatment by the military and justice department is set as an example of what happens to people who expose war crimes. Even by its own admission the Pentagon cannot come up with a single example of anyone being harmed by Bradley's braveness and they are accusing him of aiding the enemy. This is one of the most egregious examples of the miscarriage of American and military justice. Bradley should be found not guilty and freed immediately.

Perhaps if more brave souls such as Bradley Manning would have the courage and conviction to come forward horrific tragedies such as Hadifa and Kandahar would not have happened and future atrocities will not happen.