Gurkha beheads Taliban...

[Rifleman]

afghanoutsider,

I know my post had a facetious tone about a serious subject. It obvously offended you. I apologize.

You're not seriously condoning this behaviour, are you?

No, but I'm not seriously condemning it either, not just yet.

Did the Gurkha commit a war crime? I understand he displayed cultural insensitivity and he may have violated his commander's policy. But did he commit a war crime? I don't know, but if he did I won't condon it.

Did he mutilate a dead enemy combatant for a body parts trophy? If he did I won't condon it.

Did he mutilate a dead enemy combatant for the purpose of inflicting greater emotional suffering on the dead combatant's family or Afghans in general? If he did I won't condon it.

But did this young Nepalese soldier really think he was following orders as he understood them? And did his own cultural background and martial heritage make it difficult to fully understand how big a deal this was going to be? I don't know anything about Nepalese culture, so I can't say if that's the case, but it seems possible to me that it might be. If it is, I won't condemn him.

And I don't think a My Lai analogy works here. Soldiers there couldn't kill non-combatants and say, "I was just following orders." But this soldier, who is from a different culture than both his commanders and his enemies, mutilated an enemy combatant that was already dead. And he did it in the middle of a fire fight, evidently because he thought he needed to for ID purposes, and he didn't try to conceal the act as far as we know.

I'm not ready to be offended at this just yet, even if his commanders and enemies are.