It may be stating the obvious, since war encompasses everything that is the worst in humanity, but war brings out the worst in people. It's hard to imagine a more stressful situation than being a professional target or obstacle to people with guns and bombs. Nothing makes any damned sense -- at least, not in any way we've been brought up to believe. Killing is desirable and non-aggression is cowardice. Destruction is celebrated, not the human impulse to build. Anger and hatred propel you forward, where empathy, morality, and love for humanity can only hold you back.
When you drop someone in the middle of this society in reverse and they lose it, it shouldn't surprise anyone. We pretend to be shocked, but we know the history of war. It's never been any other way. When you 'let slip the dogs of war,' crime -- beyond the crime of war itself -- is unleashed as well. It can't be any other way and it's unrealistic to imagine any other outcome.
The military has some controls in this system of legalized crime. There are still lines that can't be crossed and crossing those lines turns on the justice machine -- in theory, anyway. It doesn't always work that way, but that's the way it's supposed to work. There are checks on the soldier's behavior, even if they're terribly inconsistent.
But in this war, in our time, there are more than soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Private contractors, who aren't governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and who, according to the Associated Press, "are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there," also exist there. The only real check on these people are the fact that they can be fired. Technically, they're supposed to provide security, but they act as far more than rent-a-cops. They are a collection of private armies...
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