A good Injun is a dead Injun ....

It's nothing unusual to hear of American soldiers killing native peoples. They have done it for years in the US itself, in Vietnam, in Guam and in a lot of other places. Most of the times, they get away with it, whether it may be murder or rape.

In the latest incident in Kandahar, Afghanistan, a US soldier went on a killing spree, murdering 16 innocent civilians. The US authorities are of course coming out with all kinds of rationales into the inexplicable deed heinously perpetrated by the US soldier.

Usually, it is insanity. For how could a soldier do this kind of thing unless he is insane ! There will be hordes and hordes of psychiatrists and priests from the US military establishments testifying to the fact that the US soldier is obviously mad. They will swear on their mothers' arses that the soldier is mad and hence should never, ever be punished.

In the end, the killer gets away with it. His punishment would, at best, be a few years jail in the US, not in the country where he commits the crime.

The trouble is, in America, the country is full of bigots. It is not uncommon for these bigots to kill people not of their kind and think nothing of it. Their attitude is one of " a good Injun is a dead Injun". So, it is the same manifest attitude towards the Afghanis when the soldier, an experienced staff sergeant no less, is driven to kill since the Afghanis are not of his kind.

Remember, in the dark history of US conflicts with the native Indians, after killing hundreds of innocent, unarmed Indians, US cavalry soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour for " bravery".

Update 20/-3/2012 Teusday: We are now told that the perpetrator is Sgt. Robert Bales who has now been transported to US and imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth. A columnist commented that what he did was plain murder - pure and simple. Comments from the media in the West like CNN or NY or CBS or Time were of the types that say, obviously, the man was deranged and hence didn't know what he was doing. But the funny thing was why didn't he kill his own comrades if he's mad, or deranged or insane. Why did he coolly and quietly leave the safety of his barracks, wander to the village, and kill innocent women and children, then burn them ? Is that the behaviour of a deranged, insane personality ?

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