Haditha

Comment I submitted to BBC Have Your Say on the incident:

As with Abu Ghraib, it should be asked whether there were orders or policies from higher up that led to this horrible incident. The greater lesson is that war always leads to such horrors. "Accidental" and "collateral" horrors happen, and then there will be those that are intentional, although likely motivated by panic or psychosis. It does not reflect on all soldiers, but it does reflect on the nature of war.