I struggled to write a story on the background of the man who killed the Afghan families while they slept in their own homes. I read countless stories from the myriad newspapers around the globe who covered the story endlessly.

I read the comments of the readers, who like I, searched for more information about the facts and background to try and understand why something like this happened in the first place.

The one thing that struck me was, so many people have called this individual, and I quote, a “Monster.” If he is a monster, what does that make us? We as the American public condoned this systematic killing of a population of people we know absolutely nothing about. We sent our children off to kill and maim a multitude of humans that had nothing to do with what happened in 2001. Haven’t we already finished dealing out death for what happened to us?

As we sit and enjoy life, eating our burgers, watching HBO, and carrying on with life as usual, we send our children off to kill other humans on the other side of the world. At this current time and in this instance, we don’t do it to protect ourselves, we do it for a sense of reprisal. We have already jailed or killed all of the people responsible for the terrible attacks that occurred over a decade ago.

What did the people we are currently killing do to us? How can we sleep at night, knowing children and families that in many cases, who have never even heard of America are killed as collateral casualties? What is our excuse? What have we become? We say we are trying to give them a better life, one with democracy and freedom. What does freedom mean to people that are dead or maimed?

We have given away our freedoms for a false sense of securities. We are losing the very thing that we have always said sets us apart from the baser elements of society, and we have given it away for what amounts to nothing more than revenge. We need to stop and re-assess ourselves.

While we allow the bloodshed to continue, we are letting slip our humanity.