Avoid Army 'kill team' cover-up

War is an ugly business with killing at its core. But sometimes soldiers thrown into that cauldron go too far, crossing the line into criminality and depravity. That's what allegedly happened with five U.S. soldiers charged with murdering three Afghan civilians last year in the Kandahar Province.

Two of the soldiers purportedly posed with bloody, partially naked corpses in chilling photos published this week by the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The photos were among those seized by Army investigators last year, but access to them had been limited under a protective order.

Although their existence invites comparison to the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, no evidence made public so far suggests that the killings in Afghanistan are part of any widespread, systemic brutality. U.S. Army officials blame a rogue "kill team."

One man facing court-martial, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to three counts of murder. His cooperation should help officials ensure they know the full scope of what went on.

If the extra-curricular killings were anything other than rogue criminality, this country should reveal it to the world. Any hint of damage control would undermine our credibility as a nation of laws with the utmost respect for human rights. That must not happen. hN