The alleged massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by U.S. Army staff sergeant Robert Bales has occasioned another classic, tortured American effusion of explanation and commentary. Bales' despicable actions have been attributed to traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder, the relentless burden of four deployments to war zones in the past decade, financial and marital tensions back home, disappointment over not getting promoted, anger over a friend's getting blown up. All of which are appropriate topics for discussion, and yet careless and premature and profoundly incomplete.
Once again, the 2.4 million young Americans who have served with honor in Iraq and...