OnPoint: Iraq, from the air
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3 News is hardly worth watching
It is indeed all relative. We might try TVNZ 7 news.
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<i>My point - the point of this post - is that there are distinctions between a) a deliberate strategy of terrorising the occupied population, b) a general lack of discipline or competence, c) individual sociopaths going mental, and d) geniune mistakes; and also, that attrocities committed by individuals don't automatically equal systematic war crimes, nor the reverse.
Like I said in the post, the attack on the van trying to load up the wounded was inexcusable. But I'm less certain about the identification in the first place. </i>
OK this is belated but this is a brave post Keith and your comments are spot on.
From the distance of time or location it's easy to be judgemental. At that spot in time however men see things differently. Read Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad, Berlin and D-Day or Max Hastings Armageddon and Nemesis and you will be shocked at the number of incidents where Allied soldiers casually shot German and Japanese prisoners. In the majority of instances these would be classified as simple murder. In the NZ context Sam F has pointed out what happened at Featherston POW and the disparity between the POW and guard casualties. Nothing was done however because that is the nature of war. Despite greater technology nothing has changed. Once the genie is out of the bottle war is an ugly and terrifying thing in which men usually terrified and tired do dreadful things.
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