I know that Kerry has said that he participated in free fire zones - killing anything that appeared, either during an operation, or after a curfew. These acts are considered to be against the Geneva conventions in that they potentially target innocent civilians directly, and without cause.
I think I read where Kerry participated in search and destroy, but don't remember the details.
Kerry's point was not that the soldiers were wrong (at least, not typically), but that the leadership was either ordering these atrocities, or placing the soldiers in an impossible position where such acts happened.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the same thing happened and is happening in Iraq. How many stories of innocent families being mistakenly slaughtered at road blocks? The wedding party in Afghanistan that we claimed were Taliban, and the wedding party in Iraq a while back.
These crimes happen because we put our soldiers into a situation where they have little training, under high tension, and without proper orders. In Iraq, Bush and his leadership created the situation by their bumbling of the post-invasion, lack of planning, and deliberate shunning of the UN. |
