All I can say is: It’s a good thing that Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who apparently killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood, will be tried by a panel of his peers (i.e. fellow soldiers) in a military court-martial rather than by a civilian jury. The latter, I suspect, will be more sympathetic than the former to the media-driven image of him as a poster boy for post-traumatic stress disorder rather than simply judging him to be a murderous fiend.
The New York Times, for example, has a lengthy account todaythat portrays Bales as an all-American type—high school football player, family man, patriotic volunteer—who simply snapped, through no fault of his own, under the weight of four combat deployments combined with marital and money woes. The depiction may be accurate enough, and there is no doubt that PTSD is a real problem and that nonstop combat deployments take a toll, but there is no excuse or justification for the heinous act he is accused of committing.
