Tikkabik

Sorry to get heavy for a moment, but Sgt. Paul E. Cortez has been sentenced to 100 years in prison for his part in the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the execution of her family.

Frankly, I think he got off lightly. If Cortez, who hails from Barstow, California, had committed this crime in his home state, he'd be looking at a needle instead. That's not to say I want to see him killed. Wearing my heart on my sleeve for a moment, I'm opposed to the death penalty on basic principle.

I understand the explanation given for why this occurred: That battlefield stress was the root cause of this heinous crime. I can't pretend to understand the horrors of war or the dehumanizing experiences that soldiers and civilians alike must go through in such a place as post-invasion Iraq.

Maybe I'm just being naive, here, but I say that any way you slice it, the gang rape of a child and a family's murder takes a special kind of inhuman brutality that has absolutely nothing to do with military training. That one person might have been responsible for this is mind-boggling enough. That four men -- trained by the U.S. Army, no less -- conspired to do this is damn near inconceivable.