I am soundly in the heart of my deployment now and I will say that with the current environment over here, it's starting to feel like groundhog day. I had some pretty good momentum going with the work that I'm doing and then things have just ground to a halt over the course of the last 10 days. And when you're deployed and not busy and being underutilized, well the days really do drag. So I have had the Florence and the Machine song stuck in my head for the past day. Not a bad song to have stuck in your head. Also Total Eclipse of the Heart starting to creep in (not for blog back story).
I am hoping things will return to a "normal" battle rhythm in the short term. Here is the latest:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-probe-of-koran-burning-finds-5-soldiers-responsible-afghan-clerics-demand-public-trial/2012/03/02/gIQAwJqYmR_story.html
As I have thought about this today and the discussions of accidental v. intentional and read about apologizing v. not apologizing as well as what, if any, punishment the soldiers involved should receive, I've tried to go back to my own legal training and compare it to what I have seen of the Afghan legal system. In criminal law you have strict liability offenses in which there is no mental state requirement to be found culpable of having wrongfully committed the act -- think minor crimes and infractions like parking tickets. For more serious crimes you have to have the requisite mens rea (guilty mind) to be found culpable -- whether it's intentional, knowledge, or recklessness. The way Afghans view infractions appears to be premised on strict liability -- the act happened, therefore the person that carried out the act is guilty of X infraction. Just food for thought. Lots of time to think about these things right now.
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