A Lone Madman or a Broken System?

Allauddin Khan / AP

Bloodshed An Afghan man sits beside a victim's body

With the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan already at unprecedented lows, the news on March 11 threatened to push U.S.-Afghanistan relations to a new crisis: a U.S. Army staff sergeant stationed in southern Kandahar, a married father of two children, had allegedly shot and killed 16 civilians during a harrowing house-to-house killing spree.

American and Afghan authorities are scrambling to ensure this tragedy does not derail the planned departure of NATO forces in 2014, and it is smart to keep looking forward, but we must not flinch from looking back as well:...

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