Quote Originally Posted by leo9 View Post
So if I can sum this up: it's normal and natural for soldiers in action to run wild and slaughter everyone in sight, men, women, children and crippled oldsters, they are trained to do it and they do it very well, we should accept this and admire them because it takes so much courage to do it, and the other side are evil so that makes it OK.

I cannot offhand think of any comment that wouldn't breach Godwin's Law.
Why do you believe that a modern soldier might be any different than soldiers of virtually every ken in every era that went before? We just have modern media to "horrify" civilians who never understand the realities of war. And, as Ian points out, if you want them to do this level of dirty work, you should be prepared for the consequences of training them to react to threats that can come from any direction at any time. When you can't tell the combatants from the civilians, civilians will get hurt.

And why do we villify the individual soldier when our leaders, and leaders throughout the ages, make decisions that have vast amounts of collateral damage. Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Tokyo, Berline, Dresden, Coventry, London, Verdun, are all modern era horror shows. The list goes on and on going back through the ages.

Don't think any of this is new. Just ask any Carthaginian. Wait. You can't find one.