American exceptionalism at its peak

When we read about the massacre of innocent Afghan civilians in their beds by a US soldier, it provides a bone-chilling reminder of just how exceptional the USA is:

American soldier accused of killings had traumatic injury: "KABUL: The American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians had a traumatic brain injury and had problems at home after his last deployment, it was claimed as survivors gave graphic accounts of the massacre.
The staff sergeant was said to have had the mental health screening necessary to become a sniper.
A teenager who survived the rampage told how the soldier, from the 2nd Infantry Division, murdered several members of his family and even ''insulted'' his victims as he shot them. The 15-year-old said the soldier was running after women and tearing at their dresses as he roamed his uncle's house."

Exceptional in violence, exceptional in cruelty. Exceptional beyond measure in the ability to prevaricate and misdirect attention to other, more salutary subjects.

The US government will do its best to spin events in a least damning narrative, until the entire fiasco is finally driven off the front pages and TV news reports by other, more entertaining fare.

While this incident makes the US mission more untenable than it already was, that isn't particularly a concern for the military and political establishment, while negative public feelings can have a most negative effect on taxpayer budgetary beneficence and discretionary military adventurism.

They can't put dead Afghans back together again, but this murderous thug in US fatigues won't be able to derail the US' most excellent imperial exploits.