News commentary

Those who have been in combat will testify to the catastrophic insults to the body that modern weapons can inflict. War is horrifying, and nothing can prepare the novice for the destruction that it can cause. Nor do we easily get used to the images of it, and they stay with us forever.

Recently released by the Los Angeles Times, the grisly photos of soldiers posing with the remains of dead Taliban fighters  have raised a variety of observations: From the notion that they are similar to the harmless pranks of adolescents to the assessment that their publication will be a catastrophe for the American mission in Afghanistan.

As with most extremes, neither is the case. We should also reject the argument that this incident, the burning of Korans and the deliberate murder of women and children, such as those allegedly carried out by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, are all the same. 

No excuses
Here are the facts: The pictures are about two years old and were of Taliban fighters killed when a bomb they were putting into position detonated prematurely. The photos were sent to the Times by someone who said he wanted to highlight the threat to our troops caused by the poor leadership of the unit, a part of the 82nd Airborne Division.

But, although the Times suggested that the concern was merely inadequate physical security rather than a climate of generally weak discipline, it is the latter issue that is the most striking.

When the Times notified the Defense Department that it had the photos, the Pentagon asked the paper not to publish them, arguing that they would incite the enemy to attack Americans. The Times responded that it had an obligation to publish them, citing their readers' right to be informed.

In my view, both the Defense Department and the newspaper are full of baloney: The Taliban don't need any encouragement to attack us, and a big part of the motivation of the Los Angeles Times is to sell newspapers.

More nuanced has been comment from some quarters that the troops, who were mugging for the camera, were letting off the steam that accumulates under the duress of war; that their actions were in response to having lost buddies to the mindless ferocity of the Taliban.

While these are understandable reasons, they are not excuses, of course, and the paratroopers' actions were publicly decried by government officials. Many cited long-standing rules, promulgated after similarly embarrassing episodes, stating that such antics are impermissible.

Lack of leadership
But the truth is that you can't merely legislate against dumb behavior. In and out of combat, good units get that way because they are well led.

Poor leadership can create poor units in a very short period of time, particularly under stress. While good leadership can bring any organization through the most horrendous circumstances with only physical scars.

The leadership of the brigade in the 82nd that is at the center of this photo controversy was evidently already known as weak by the chain-of-command above it. There are many military organizations that have endured more harrowing circumstances with less damage to discipline.

It is not easy being a leader in uniform, but there is a responsibility attached to it that is found nowhere else in society. Military service is a sacrifice and those who volunteer for it are our patriots. But service is no game, and because so much is at stake, standards of deportment must be extremely high.

We are frequently reminded of it, but it bears repeating nonetheless: a commander is responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen in his unit, and it is he who sets the standards in his organization. Accepting less than professional behavior will minimize the service and sacrifice of those who have taken seriously their responsibilities as the guardians of our freedom.

Col. Jack Jacobs was awarded the Medal of Honor for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” in the battle he describes above. His first assignment in the Army, in 1966-1967, was in Company C, 2nd Battalion (Airborne) 505th Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division, the same division as the troops in this incident.

Click here to read the complete Medal of Honor citation. 

He is the author of a memoir: “If Not Now, When? Duty and Sacrifice in America’s Time of Need”

Updated at 7:24 a.m. ET: A U.S. soldier's shooting of 16 Afghan civilians deepened questions on Monday about what the United States can accomplish in Afghanistan before it withdraws, as Washington rushed to contain the damage from the startling rogue attack.

President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai by telephone and offered condolences for the attack, in which a U.S. soldier left his base in southern Afghanistan and began a middle-of-the-night shooting spree that local officials said killed nine children, three women, and four men.

"This incident is tragic and shocking," Obama said in a statement.

Reports of the attack remain confused. U.S. officials say only one soldier was involved, while villagers and other Afghans said it was a group of soldiers. But the Obama administration vowed a rapid investigation and promised to hold whoever was behind the violence fully responsible.

The soldier suspected of being responsible has been detained but has yet to be identified. However, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to NBC News that he is based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Tacoma, Wash.

LIVE Chat: Ask NBC's Afghanistan correspondent your questions about the attack 12:00-12:30p.m.ET

While U.S. officials rushed to draw a line between the shooting and the ongoing efforts of a U.S. force of around 90,000, the incident is sure to infuriate Afghans already suspicious of a Western military presence now over a decade old. The incident may provide ammunition to those in Washington advocating for an accelerated exit from a long, costly and inconclusive war.

'American savages'
NBC News reported that there were no signs of demonstrations early Monday.

In a statement Monday, the Afghan Taliban pledged to "take revenge" against the "sick-minded American savages," according to the AFP news agency.

"The American 'terrorists' want to come up with an excuse for the perpetrator of this inhumane crime by claiming that this immoral culprit was mentally ill," the Taliban statement added. "If the perpetrators of this massacre were in fact mentally ill then this testifies to yet another moral transgression by the American military, because they are arming lunatics in Afghanistan who turn their weapons against the defenseless Afghans without giving a second thought."

Last month, the burning of copies of the Quran on a NATO military base triggered violent protests across the country and a spate of insider attacks against Western soldiers.

Afghan suspect's base has recent history of controversies

$500 billion war bill
Sunday's attack may harden a growing consensus in Washington that, despite a troop surge, a war bill exceeding $500 billion and nearly 2,000 U.S. lives lost, prospects are dimming for what the United States can accomplish in Afghanistan before it pulls most troops out by the end of 2014.

Obama's surge of 33,000 troops has beaten the Taliban back from some areas of Afghanistan's south, but serious doubts remain about whether an inexperienced local military and wobbly central government can keep a resilient insurgency at bay.

Pete Souza / White House via Reuters

President Barack Obama talks on a phone with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai from his vehicle in Chevy Chase, Md., on Sunday.

"These killings only serve to reinforce the mindset that the whole war is broken and that there's little we can do about it beyond trying to cut our losses and leave," said Joshua Foust, a security expert with the American Security Project.

Afghans haven’t traditionally responded with violence or widespread protests to civilian deaths, the Christian Science Monitor reported, as many view such behavior as a byproduct of war.

Report: Suspect is Iraq veteran, married father of two children

But, Abdul Rahim Ayobi, a member of Parliament from Kandahar told the Monitor, “it gives us the message that the American soldiers are not under the control of their generals and these American generals have failed to manage them.”

If the incident triggers retaliatory violence against Western troops, it may well help shape ongoing deliberations within the Obama administration about how quickly U.S. soldiers should be withdrawn, possibly strengthening the case of those surrounding the president who back a more decisive drawdown.

Obama and other NATO leaders are expected to define their plans for gradually trimming Western forces and putting Afghan troops in charge of security when they meet at a NATO summit in Chicago in May.

'The house of cards is falling'
Most Western combat troops are expected to be gone by the end of 2014, but some U.S. soldiers could remain beyond then, likely focusing on targeted strikes on militants and supporting local forces, who will need outside help for years to come.

"This is terrible timing for people who either want to stay through 2014 or even extend the U.S. presence there," Foust said. "Though the overall number of (similar) incidents remains pretty low, there is a broad and growing perception that now both sides are dysfunctional and committing murder, or the house of cards is falling."

In a post on Twitter, Pentagon spokesman George Little said the incident would not change the U.S. mission. "The recent tragedy in Afghanistan will not deter us from pursuing our fundamental strategy. We've come too far with our Afghan partners."

Sunday's shooting may dispel the goodwill created by an agreement reached on Friday on control over military prisons in Afghanistan, which had been one of the remaining stumbling blocks to reaching a deal governing future U.S.-Afghan ties.

Andrew Exum, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former Army Ranger, said the shootings come at a sensitive time in negotiations on that deal, which the White House wanted to unveil by the May summit.

"One wonders whether or not internal political pressures in Afghanistan will constrain the options of Afghan negotiators on subjects ranging from U.S. basing rights to night raids," Exum said.

Some U.S. officials told the New York Times that the Taliban hard-liners could be emboldened by the incidents. “The fear,” one U.S. official told the Times, “ is that all these incidents, taken together, play into the Taliban’s account of how we treat the Afghan religion and people.”

Election impact?
The shootings may complicate things for Obama ahead of November's presidential election.

While jobs and the economy will likely remain the focus of the presidential race, the White House has hoped to point to a series of foreign policy successes, such as the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, to shore up Obama's support.

The recent tumult in Afghanistan may increase the pressure Obama faces in coming months from fellow Democrats who favor a more rapid drawdown.

Family loses 2 sons in Afghanistan

While many Republicans have warned against pulling out too quickly, conservative presidential candidate Newt Gingrich voiced a very different view.

"There's something profoundly wrong with the way we're approaching the whole region and I think it's going to get substantially worse, not better. And I think that we're risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may frankly not be doable," Gingrich said on "Fox News Sunday."

He said Washington should consider pulling out of Afghanistan and reconsider its role in the entire region.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Qais Usyan / AFP - Getty Images

More than a decade after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

"I understand the anger and the sorrow," said John McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who like many other Republicans has warned a hasty withdrawal will undermine U.S. security in the long run.

"I also understand that we should not forget that the attacks on the United States of America on 9/11 originated in Afghanistan, and if Afghanistan dissolved into a situation where the Taliban were able to take over, or a chaotic situation, it could easily return to an al-Qaida base for attacks," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

UK mourns four 20-year-olds killed in Afghan attack

Further complicating the matter is the limited patience many of Obama's top supporters have for Karzai, who has demanded an explanation for Sunday's shootings, which he called "intentional murders."

"The great weakness in Afghanistan is Karzai," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "Nobody seems to trust him or like him. And the idea of turning it over to the Afghan forces is the right way to go, but that's a major question mark: Karzai."

In the meantime, U.S. officials in Washington and on the ground appeared to be bracing themselves for a backlash.

The U.S. Embassy, on its Twitter feed, said the movement of U.S. personnel in southern Afghanistan would be restricted and warned that "anti-American feelings and protests" may be ahead.

Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution, said the quick, conciliatory statements from senior American officials were wise, but added that it might not be possible to staunch Afghan fury that may be unleashed by the killings.

"I don't know that a lot can be done," he said.

NBC News, msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mammon Durrani / AFP - Getty Images

A villager on Sunday points to where a family was allegedly shot in their home by a U.S. soldier in Alkozai, a village in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

Updated at 6:28 p.m. ET: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A U.S. service member shot dead at least 15 members of two Afghan families as well as a 16th person before turning himself in, officials said Sunday. U.S. officials said the soldier was a staff sergeant.

Some witnesses said more than one soldier was involved, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a statement cited only one shooter in what he called "an assassination," adding that nine of the dead were children, and three were women.

The detained soldier has yet to be identified, but a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to NBC News that he is based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Tacoma, Wash. An official told the Associated Press that the suspect is a conventional soldier assigned to support a special operations unit of either Green Berets or Navy SEALs engaged in a village stability operation.

The soldier reportedly left his base in the early hours Sunday and went to two villages just a few hundred yards away. He then opened fire on Afghan civilians sleeping in their homes, Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid told Reuters. The service member entered three homes in the villages in Kandahar province, he said.

Twelve of the dead were from Balandi, said Samad Khan, adding that 11 were from his family, including women and children. Khan was away from the village when the incident occurred. One of his neighbors was also killed, he said.

"This is an anti-human and anti-Islamic act," said Khan. "Nobody is allowed in any religion in the world to kill children and women."

Ahmad Nadeem / Reuters

Afghan soldiers keep watch at a U.S. military base Sunday as nearby residents gather following the killing of civilians in a rural area of Kandahar province.

Khan demanded that Karzai punish the American shooter. "Otherwise we will make a decision," said Khan. "He should be handed over to us."

The U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan said the soldier being held would remain in its custody.

Four people reportedly killed in the neighboring village were also from a single family, said a female relative who was shouting in anger. She did not give her name because of the conservative nature of local society.

"No Taliban were here. No gun battle was going on," said the woman. "We don't know why this foreign soldier came and killed our innocent family members. Either he was drunk or he was enjoying killing civilians."

Five were wounded in the incident, said Khalid, who is investigating the incident.

US gives up control of jail where Quran was burned

The BBC reported that the soldier was thought to have suffered a breakdown.

 Earlier, Afghanistan's defense ministry told Reuters that "coalition forces" killed civilians in the shooting spree. NATO did not immediately comment on the report, which implied that there had been more than one attacker.

American and NATO officials apologized for Sunday's shootings.

"I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering," President Barack Obama, who also spoke with Karzai, said in a statement. "This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan."

NATO, meanwhile, called the attack "appalling" and said it was in no way part of its authorized activities.

"An investigation is already underway and every effort will be made to establish the facts and hold anyone responsible to account," Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said in a statement. 

5 Taliban detainees transferring out of Gitmo

Civilian casualties have been a major source of friction between Karzai's government and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

"U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, in cooperation with Afghan authorities, will investigate this incident," NATO said.

The killings happened in Panjwayi district, about 22 miles west of Kandahar City. The district is considered the spiritual home of the Taliban and has been a hive of insurgent activity in recent years.

Anti-American sentiment is running high in Afghanistan and it may deepen once news of the shooting spreads.

Anger gripped the country after U.S. soldiers burned a large number of copies of the Koran at a NATO base last month. NATO said it was a tragic blunder.

Thirty people were killed in protests and Afghan forces turned their weapons on U.S. soldiers, killing six.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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