An American soldier (a staff sergeant) wandered off his base to two nearby villages and massacred 16 Afghan civilians. Nine of them were children sleeping in their beds.

In my opinion, it's pretty obvious that he's suffering from dementia. Otherwise, where is his motive? Has any been suggested?

He served three tours of duty in Iraq, and prolonged stress can cause vascular dementia. He also received a traumatic brain injury which could have been a trigger for early onset Alzheimer's disease. And it's possible to have both vascular dementia and Alzheimer's at the same time.

It's telling that it happened at night, which leads me to the following theory. 1) he went to sleep as usual 2) he began to dream 3) he then got up, as if in a state of sleep-walking and 4) it was in this altered trance-like mental state that he carried out the massacre.

Most of us know when we've had a bad dream. But it's possible that someone with dementia and/or brain injury might not know the difference between a wakeful state and a dream state. So, that means "waking up" can be a continuation of the dream or nightmare state of mind.

The political angle: If my theory proves to be true, will the U.S. military (or civilian court) see it and excuse him from any punishment? Or, will they sacrifice him (execute him) to satisfy the Afghans?