Special Forces Sergeant Charles Martland

A delegate from Culpepper, VA -- a city with some significant American heritage -- rises to call his fellows to the defense of an American warrior. The speech is impassioned. I don't know if it is convincing. Many will be put off by the admission that the sergeant "beat" an Afghan police officer, regardless of the fact that this officer was a child rapist.

In the old days, we would have simply asked: What would you have done, if it had been you standing there, and the child came to beg you for help? What would you have done, when the police laughed in your face and the faces of the child and his mother? What else could you do to convey that, at least as long as you were there, the rape of children was going to stop?

In the old days, any American worth his salt would have said nothing in answer to those questions, but nodded. There are no good answers to the questions. In such a place as Afghanistan, there is only doing what you can do as the man on the ground with the gun. You may not be able to change the culture, but you can make it stop for a while.

That's what any of us would have done. It's not a question of what is right. It's a question of what is left.