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In other words, top administration figures and Pentagon commanders bear responsibility for the killings and atrocities they order. "But in the current 'war on terror,' the open secret is that" low-ranking soldiers are blamed to absolve superiors and let "rotten apples" be prosecuted and punished.
"Who are the real war criminals in the war crimes that were committed during Operation Triangle on May 9, 2006?" Their commanders, not the soldiers. Yet through conspiracy and cover-up they were convicted to absolve the powerful.
In his opening Nuremberg address, Justice Robert Jackson said:
"The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched."
He called Nuremberg defendants "men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. These were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders...." The same standard applies to America under binding US and international laws.
"The important point....is not just about Operation Iron Triangle, but about this tragic mission and its connections to American society in the new millennium." It exposes the "systemic dysfunctions in the army as well as American society in this era" that lets innocent victims pay for their superiors' crimes.
In violation of international and US law, the brigade commander issued an illegal ROE to kill every military-aged Iraqi on sight, the same policy Israelis use against Palestinians and America historically, including during WW II in the Pacific ("the good war") that historian John Dower called a "War Without Mercy" in his powerful 1986 book. Nearly always, higher-ups escape responsibility, only low-level soldiers, a few "rotten apples" take the fall.
So four Operation Iron Triangle troops were convicted of conspiracy, murder, aggravated assault, or obstruction of justice for following orders, that if disobeyed would have gotten them court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, fined and imprisoned.
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