Leadership put on trial for terror:

The Army’s investigation into a group of Stryker soldiers who allegedly killed Afghan civilians paints Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs as the ringleader, but soldiers who served with him have been contradicting that picture at recent hearings. Several witnesses who were stationed with Gibbs at Forward Operating Base Ramrod earlier this year say he was a solid leader. In contrast, they say they didn’t trust Spc. Jeremy Morlock, who with Gibbs is accused of three murders. Morlock told investigators in May that Gibbs made up scenarios to kill civilians and they carried them out during patrols. (Emphasis mine)

War is a blunt instrument. Combat zones feature young, highly-motivated and trained killers who can be instructed to do awful things. Like any other human institution, the military has its sociopaths — but in uniform, they can wreak tremendous damage.

But what seems to be emerging in the testimony at trial is the picture of a specialist with a sickness and a sergeant who indulged him, much like the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Morlock sounds like the kind of guy who leaves the Army to smoke dope and start a militia. And just where does Morlock hail from? Why, none other than Wasilla, Alaska — where militias and right-wing culture produced the Palins.

I’m certainly not saying there’s a connection between the Palins and Morlock’s actions. He also trained at Fort Benning, for instance, which is where the School of the Americas/WHISC is located; but he was never a student of that school. Connection is not causality. What I wonder is how close Morlock was to the Palins’ Pastor Muthee-inspired world of John Birch insanity, and whether that had a role.

Bristol is friends with Morlock’s sister, and according to Alaska’s Palin-watchers the house that was infamously trashed by an underage party was Morlock’s. Shannyn Moore has informed me that Todd Palin once dated Morlock’s mother. It is a small world; but did a small world produce both Sarah and Morlock?