Skipjack wrote:I see you do understand what I am trying to say Msimon.
Yes, they were ordinary people. Yes, somehow they ended up commiting atrocities. Denying the possibilty that this could happen in the US or that US soldier could be capable of simillar is the best way to make it happen.
a) none of us are denying that ANY human being is capable of committing atrocities given the right conditions. That is actually a tautology of the error of empowering government and why some of us here are libertarians: we implicitly understand that when you empower government employees to kill, to torture, to abuse the rights of people, they will rather naturally exercise those powers and excuse themselves because they were "acting under orders", and despite those orders being illegal orders, neither they, nor their superiors will ever actually be held accountable. (hence, Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc etc)
b) what we ARE denying is the claim that the US forces regularly kill civillians, even in small numbers, intentionally, and we are denying that there are any credible claims to the contrary.
c) The Geneva Conventions clearly remove legal protections from those found to be committing war crimes, being unlawful combatants. I don't care if you don't care about the Conventions, other than to say, that your attitude is exactly the problem that your ancestors in WWII suffered from that led them to commit the crimes they did.
d) You also forget that, while violations of the Conventions are ajudicated by military tribunals, by national and international courts, this does not mean that a country cannot pass laws with higher standards of human behavior and hold people to account who violated them within their own borders.
e) All this being said, it is to the benefit of our soldiers that they strive to act within the limits of the conventions at all times, even if the enemy does not. Firstly it gives us the moral authority on the world stage, and builds public sympathy for US troops when the enemy captures and abuses them. For instance, that 'confession' video that the taliban have released, of a captured US serviceman, is a war crime, and rather than building sympathy for the Taliban, builds sympathy for the US and illustrates the barbarous nature of the enemy.
Finally, I have absolutely no problem with insurgents attacking our forces with any tactics they find effective, HOWEVER, I still accept that by doing so they likewise deserve whatever they have coming to them if they act in violation of the laws of war.
There is nothing wrong with encouraging an enemy to continue to pick up a weapon while in an untenable situation, especially when the enemy is demonstrably barbarous and vile in how they treat their enemies, however I agree that it would portray our troops in a more positive light if they had instead spoken as if disgouraging them from picking weapons back up. There is nothing sick about what they did, merely impolitic.
As a result, the military must go to great lengths to convey to us the notion that we have to put up with some for awhile. 
