MILITARY 'LEGITIMACY' TAKES A COUPLE HARD
IDF arrests caught on tape raise questions on military practices - AP
In retreat/regroup after attack, US troops may have hit civilian targets - AP
Over the years, Israeli credibility on ops has taken hits from 'fabricated' human-shield allegations.
On the latter, there must be some way for the NATO command to learn from and avoid
- (a) falling prey to deliberate falsifications
- (b) doing something other than shrugging it off, if there might have been some unintended consequence to an action, even if circumstances might justified this or that action (such as aggressive situation management, prompt payments of damages, political assurances - and above all, honesty, not secrecy), and
- (c) actually taking negligible chance that any weak links do not get a professional pass, even if it just means getting some folks off the battlefield for a while, rather than full-scale prosecution.
It seems harsh and maybe even a costly effort, depending on the tactics employed; but these stories can be the foundation of an insidious political mythology that can take on a life of its own, if not handled head-on (by visible, senior-level involvement?), but dodged.
THE ARMY HAS TO WATCH ITS OWN CULTURE
They can shape the political landscape, and individual ethics. In counterinsurgency, that might be tantamount to shaping the battlefield, in unintended ways. Accordingly, it's serious - the Army has to watch its culture on the matter (not that it isn't, that I know, but just 2-pundit-cents).
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