‘Blood Money’
One way to reconcile U.S. and Afghan expectations in the latest killings may lie outside the military justice system: compensation to families of the victims in southern Afghanistan, said Noah Coburn, a socio-cultural anthropologist who focuses on dispute resolution in Afghanistan.
Islamic law encourages family of murder victims to forgive their killers by accepting such “blood money” instead of seeking revenge, Bhala said.
“The payment of compensation in the case of homicides like these would be typical in a case resolved in the south of the country,” Coburn, a senior adviser with the U.S. Institute of Peace, said in an e-mail.