"They were all drunk and shooting all over the place," - Reuters

[jsmirman]

4. I'd be careful with this one

as I said in another thread on the topic, at minimum, this must be a joint US-Afghan investigation/punishment/follow-up from start to finish.

I read this story, though, and it seems the Taliban may be taking an active hand in stretching the unspeakably horrible narrative to be something even worse.

I want a full investigation, but I'm not buying that it's more than one guy and that everything in that account is true without more information. It is certainly in the Taliban's interest for this to not be one soldier off on a gruesome rampage but instead a deliberate action by a group of laughing US troops.

The obvious interest the Taliban would have in that being the story should be enough to at least counsel patience in jumping to that sort of conclusion.

A joint US-Afghan involvement in every step that takes place from this point forward might help at least a little to lessen the sense that the US is trying to falsify whatever actually happened here.