You’ve got to hand it to the Afghans: They’ve been darn civil about this whole business of wrong-way bombs killing innocent people. Which is good, because things like that seem to be happening with appalling frequency.

The American military is compiling a record of miscues, misjudgments and mistakes, both alleged and conceded, which could easily jeopardize international support for the terrorism war. Except that Afghanistan’s interim leader, Harmid Karzai, and more importantly, the people themselves, have so far declined to make an issue of it. Even after the October air raid, which, according to survivors, killed not terrorists but 21 innocent people, including 17 babies and children. And the January commando raid in which the 27 people captured turned out to be civilians, some of whom had actively opposed the Taliban and al-Qaida. And the Feb. 4 missile strike that locals say  and the Pentagon denies  killed a small group of harmless peasants.

I just wonder if the Afghans will be so understanding about the latest incident: U.S. soldiers allegedly beating the crap out of innocent civilians. That’s what several of the 27 former detainees say happened to them while they were in U.S. custody.

The Pentagon is investigating the accusation. It should do so with all deliberate speed.

For now, the attitude of many in this war-hardened nation seems similar to that of Qara Big Izid Yar, president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, an affiliate of the Red Cross. He told a Washington Post reporter, “People don’t have any complaints about America. They’re very happy that the Americans attacked the Taliban and al-Qaida. They understand mistakes. They know the American people. They know (the Americans) don’t want to hurt the Afghan people.”

The Afghan people, it seems, have a survivor’s understanding that war is as imprecise as it is horrific, so they stand ready to forgive when we mistakenly bomb them, detain them or fire missiles at them.

But I suspect they are less sanguine when we mistakenly punch them, kick them and bloody them. That’s an “oops” of a different kind. There is a qualitative difference between an anonymous pilot in an anonymous plane erroneously dropping an anonymous bomb on an anonymous target and a soldier beating an unthreatening man until ribs are fractured, teeth are loosened and consciousness is lost. It’s the very intimacy of the latter that could test the forbearance of a forbearing people and threaten to compromise one of America’s most effective assets in the war on terrorism. Meaning, the moral high ground.

That ground is, make no mistake, as important to this effort in its way as armament.

We are widely and properly viewed as the aggrieved victims of unprovoked attack, striking back in self-defense. Indeed, it can be argued that Sept. 11 made this war not just morally justified, but morally REQUIRED. It’s because of this that international endorsement of the attack on al-Qaida and the Taliban has been so strong. It’s also why the attack has enjoyed unwavering domestic support. If you wonder why that matters, consider how difficult President Johnson found it to lead the nation through a conflict it did not wholeheartedly support.

So the Pentagon investigation needs to be swift and thorough. And if the accusations are substantiated, the guilty should be disciplined with equal alacrity. Only by demonstrating that we take such breaches seriously do we ensure our grip on the moral high ground.

Possession of that ground allows the government exceptional latitude to pursue its aims. But our grip on it can easily be threatened by a few poorly disciplined soldiers who brutalize the innocent  or even the guilty  under the misapprehension that they’re striking a blow for the victims of Sept. 11.

The only blow such people strike is against U.S. interests. They make us look as lawless and unprincipled as those we struggle against. They make any trust the people of Afghanistan put in our protestations of noble intention seem foolishly, bitterly misplaced.

The Afghans have forgiven us for horrible mistakes. But I doubt they would forgive us for that.