Do We Have Values?

On Tuesday, The Military Times posted a story about Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland, a Green Beret who was selected for an involuntary discharge through an Army force reduction program.

The article reports:

Martland, 33, was awarded two Bronze Star medals, including one for valor, during his time at JBLM (Joint Base Lewis–McChord). He likely will be discharged in November because the discipline handed to him for assaulting the Afghan made him a target for Army downsizing. Veteran soldiers with negative performance reviews in their service records are being culled from the ranks as part of the post-Iraq War drawdown.

The article reports the actions Sgt. Martland took that got him in trouble with his superiors:

In 2011, Martland was nearing the end of his yearlong deployment in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz province when he and an officer became outraged with the behavior of some local leaders they were responsible for developing as police commanders.

Martland and his detachment commander, Capt. Daniel Quinn, lost their tempers when one leader near their base kidnapped a boy for more than a week, chained him to a bed, raped the child and then assaulted the boy’s mother, Quinn said.

The mother appealed to the Green Berets to help her son. Quinn said the soldiers brought the Afghan commander to their base and confronted him.

Quinn told The News Tribune that the Afghan admitted he had raped the boy. He angered the American soldiers by showing disregard for their concerns.

“He started laughing when we talked about what a big deal this was,” Quinn said.

Martland and Quinn proceeded to assault the Afghan. Accounts vary on how badly they hurt him.

The article quotes Col. Steve Johnson, the battalion commander in the 1st Special Forces Group was in Afghanistan at the time of the incident:

“You cannot try to impose American values and American norms onto the Afghan culture because they’re completely different,” Johnson said. “We can report and we can encourage them. We do not have any power or the ability to use our hands to compel them to be what we see as morally better.”

If being angered by the rape of a child and a mother is an American value, I am proud to be an American. I see no reason to send American troops into harms way to fight for people who think rape is fine. I also think that pedophelia is one value we should not accept as a legitimate part of any culture.