In Washington, a senior U.S. military officer said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that commanders realize that troops involved in counterinsurgency operations "could snap" in the face of severe pressures.
"When you're in a combat theater dealing with enemy combatants who don't abide by the law of war, who do acts of indecency, soldiers become stressed, they become fearful," said Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff at the top U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad. "It's very difficult to determine in some cases on this battlefield who is a combatant and who is a civilian.
"It doesn't excuse the acts that have occurred, and we're going to look into them," he added. "But I would say it's stress, fear, isolation and, in some cases, they're just upset. They see their buddies getting blown up on occasion, and they could snap."
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I can't tell how how incredibly angry it makes me to read these rationalizations of what allegedly happened in Iraq.
Who the fuck 'snaps' and then kills babies - supposedly mistaking them for enemy combatants?
And the US military thinks it can cure this kind of behaviour with "ethics" training? Are you kidding me? You would never hear Americans say the same of an alleged mass murderer in the United States. Timothy McVeigh? Oh, he just snapped. Ted Bundy? Yup, he snapped too. Maybe they should have been given ethics training too.
Let's get real here.
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