Required Reading: Everybody in America should be required to read Tim Golden's article in Friday's New York Times about the murder of Afghan inmates. Weak minds will try to compare the sadistic murders of two Afghan prisoners, both of whom appear to have been innocent of any crimes against the U.S., with the events of 9/11, but no such comparison can be made.

Currently, it appears that our military leaders are doing their utmost to defray attention from the fact that actions this despicable can be performed under their watch. The administration has tried to turn blame onto a newsmagazine for riots in Afghanistan. We must not let them forget or deny their responsibility.

On March 31, 1971, Lt. William Calley was convicted of the 1968 My Lai Massacre. He served only three and a half years of a twenty year sentence, and that time was served under house arrest. Calley and his platoon murdered 109 Vietnamese civilians. No one above Calley was ever convicted of any criminal behavior. The military never accepted any responsibility for having helped to create such a situation.

The truth of leadership is always—always—what happens under your watch IS your responsibility. The buck always stops here, whether you want it to or not. When you hire the wolf to herd the sheep, he will eat the sheep.

Whether or not Calley was a wolf herding sheep or not is open to speculation. But the men and women who committed the atrocities in Afghanistan were definitely wolves, and our leaders hired them, failed to train them, and placed them in the middle of a pen full of sheep.