Atrocities and War

A film has just been released of a group of British soldiers beating some Iraqi youths. British politicians are saying that the incident will be investigated and the culprits punished.

I get upset when politicians pontificate about soldiers committing atrocities. All wars produce atrocities. This is the nature of war. If you take young men, often not well educated or adapted to life, and train them to kill, then get them shot at by other people, some will be brutalized and commit atrocities like those on the film.

There has never been a war without atrocities. The politicians who order armies to war know what will follow. To grandstand about rotten apples and to pretend surprise is just hypocrisy. The soldiers who so beat up civilians are just doing what they have been trained and ordered to do with excessive zeal.

The politicians who order an army to war know that many innocent civilians will be killed and that some soldiers will go over the top. They should take the plank out their own eyes and take responsibility for all the evil consequences or their wars.
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