Richlevy that's an excellent point.
It's too easy I think to simply point at the soldiers/reservists who engaged in such activities and say they are the problem. The way I understand it, it's not an easy thing to cross that line the first time. Our militaries spend fortunes training people to be able to cross a line which most humans simply cant cross.
In studies ranging from the Prussian wars to the modern era we see that the vast majority of soldiers on the front line ( without the particular training which has been developed to combat this in recent years) didnt aim to kill when confronted with his enemy's face. In the down and dirty type of fighting which allows you to see the eyes of the man you are about to kill most people find it nearly impossible to strike the killing blow. People who would have sworn blind they would have no difficulty found instead that they simply couldnt do it. One of the most common forms this inability would take ...was that their hand would not respond. A temporary paralysis or freezing of their trigger finger.
An American military chap ( cant recall his name now) who lectures at Westpoint and is recognised as the world's leading expert in the phsycology of killing suggested on a programme I saw, that 98 per cent of the population find killing difficult often to the point of impossibilty which means that even if they are able to overcome their difficulty and take the life of another they are then left with enormous phsycological trauma....Two per cent have little or no difficulty in killing . Of those half are what we generally think of as "heros" they are able to empathise and understand the seriousnes of what they do but are able to kill without difficulty and without the crippling psychological aftereffects. The other half of this 2 per cent...are sociopaths. They are able to kill without difficulty , without psychological after effects and are unable to empathise.
The US military has perfected training methods which specifically counter this difficulty. Theirs is the best training available to modern man if what you wish to train people to do is to step over the line which stops most animals (it apparently holds true across many species) actually killing another of its own species.
They apparently can now train an ordinary soldier in such a fashion that they are able to overcome this whilst in combat. (they do it with very very sophisticated wargames and pattern behaviours to the point of near automation when in the zone)
They are still working on the crippling psychological after effects
They claim 60 % of their soldiers now are able to fire the killing shot at rather than 2 or 3 % .....If thats the case then there must be a lot of trauma being inflicted on these people which they are going to have to live with...Not just the ones who have committed "crimes" against the Iraqis but the also ones who are following orders to the letter and doing their job well.
It also means....that amongst the well trained and organised soldiers there is a small but heavily armed bunch of sociopaths running around iraq right now.
Needless to say I think this extends to the British army also....Seems our boys and girls have been up to some highly dubious shenanigans as well.
Iraqi familys' High Court Battle for Compensation