Disgusting. I don’t understand how these soldiers can murder civilians and somehow receive a sentence of only twenty-four years in prison. (That amounts to four years per kill.) Imagine the outcry if these men had killed six white suburbanites in America? People would be calling for their deaths.

Instead, it’s another stark reminder of the fact that, for most Americans, the value of humanity ends at the borders of the United States.

Per CNN:

Adam Winfield is one of six soldiers who, while on assignment in Afghanistan, are accused of participating in an illegal “kill squad” that murdered civilians and covered up the alleged crimes by making it appear as if they were insurgents. An additional six soldiers are accused with lesser crimes in the case, including helping to cover up the killings.

Winfield originally faced five charges, including murdering three Afghan civilians. If convicted, Winfield faced a potential life sentence in a military prison.

In March, another soldier, Pvt. Jeremy Morlock, pleaded guilty to to killing three Afghan civilians for thrills and covering up the murders. Morlock testified in 2010 they murdered the unarmed men on patrols in villages and then planted “drop weapons” on them to appear as if the soldiers had first come under fire before killing them.

Morlock’s chilling testimony painted a picture of soldiers gone rogue; abusing drugs, executing Afghan civilians they referred to as “savages” and posing in photographs over the dead men. Morlock is serving a 24-year prison sentence.

This is not not simply about some ignorant scumbag in Florida burning a Qu’ran.

Perhaps burning a Qu’ran is what tipped people over the edge, but these protests are about the wholesale destruction that our country has wrought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our politicians claim we are the salvation of the countries we occupy, but it seems clear that the people there think differently. Our bombs do not discriminate between civilian and combatant, nor their homes, farms, and fields. Just last month we bombed nine innocent kids, and we tried to excuse ourselves by claiming we thought they were combatants. When their countrymen see those excuses in print and ticking across a television, how do you think it makes them feel?

I would wager that any member of those kids’ communities would gladly strap a bomb to their chest and walk into an American Starbucks if they had the chance, because our heavy-handed treatment of their country and their people has demonstrated that we have no respect for them or their beliefs.

Do you remember how you felt on 9/11? Afghanis get that feeling every time they see a shadow pass overheard. They know that our military does not care who they kill as long as they can claim they’re winning the war on terror.

There’s only one solution in my book… our military needs to get the eff out of Afghanistan.