007

Peray, Thailand

A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse
--Caleb Williams, William Godwin

_______________

A contractor who killed an Afghan man for dousing his colleague with gasoline and setting her afire was exonerated in U.S. federal court last week. The lenient decision could be read as giving contractors a license to kill (No Jail Time in Retribution Killing Overseas).

"Amid a mundane conversation about fuel prices, Abdul Salam doused an American anthropologist with gasoline and lit her on fire, an attack in a small Afghan village last year that was as ferocious as it was unexpected. When Don M. Ayala learned what had happened to his colleague moments after subduing and handcuffing Salam, he placed his 9mm pistol against Salam's head and pulled the trigger, killing the detainee instantly.

"Ayala, a former Army Ranger who was working on Afghanistan's battlefields as a contractor, admitted his crime and later entered a guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter in what U.S. federal prosecutors called an "execution." Yesterday, in an Alexandria federal courtroom, although prosecutors urged Judge Claude M. Hilton to impose a jail sentence of at least six years, Hilton spared Ayala jail time because of the horrific and emotional circumstances that preceded the slaying."

Is it correct to say Mr. Ayala was "working on the battlefield"? Has the battlefield been defined? Is it the entire country of Afghanistan? Ms. Loyd was an anthropologist, whose assignments are not combat assignments.

This is an atrocious situation in which a U.S. type does a field adjudication on an Afghan national. The message is that Americans are killers, just like the Talibs. And a Ranger, no less -- a title synonymous with honor, integrity and duty. What has happened to Federal sentencing guidelines, or is there an exception permitting kneeling a hadji in the ditch and slapping a 9 mm to his head?

"Although prosecutors said Salam deserves no sympathy, they also argued that Ayala exacted illegal revenge on a then-incapacitated detainee. Salam's motive and potential terrorist co-conspirators will never be known because he was slain."

This presumes an unproven terror linkage to Salam. Killing an American woman may have simply been a statement of hatred for America, and does not necessarily indicate an association with al-Qaeda. There are plenty of unaffiliated Afghans who would be willing to kill an American when the opportunity arises.

This action highlights the inconsistency of U.S. Counterinsurgency policy and the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). Mr. Ayala was a contractor, yet he apprehended and handcuffed an Afghan suspect. Contractors are not police, and do not have arrest powers.

If COIN is real, then only the Afghan police could arrest a suspected evil-doer. If real, then Mr. Ayala would have been arrested on the spot by Afghan officials for his summary execution. That it didn't happen that way shows there are two yardsticks for adjudication of suspects.

To those who would say Mr. Ayala was within his rights, taking that argument to its logical end, the Afghan police would have been within their rights to then shoot Mr. Ayala for his actions.

Mr. Salam had an unknown number of extended family members and tribal affiliates and now, with one 9 mm round, has created an unknown number of insurgents. Revenge is like a virus that replicates stealthily within a society.

It seems there is a racial aspect to prosecutions in the PWOT. Muslims go to U.S. prison, while white guys walk, even if the offense is proportional. There are those who will cheer Mr. Ayala's retribution, but if we say we are there to democratize them, we must offer a viable alternative. If we do not, we have removed their ideological options. When justice is a joke, so too is democracy. The two are correlates.

It would be interesting to know the source of funds for Mr. Ayala's defense. It is possible that an unstated mission of contractors is to keep the war going?

Don't kill the Golden Goose.