Well, you can't. Ever. About fifty years ago members of the UN General Assembly ratified something called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, amongst other things, enshrined the right to life: Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. The Geneva Convention was also pretty clear on the treatment of civilian non-combatants. We're supposed to take them seriously, apparently. Sorry, but unless they are indeed proven to be suffering some form of mental illness the circumstances that exposed what must otherwise be a fundamental lack of moral fortitude don't qualify them for victimhood. Not by a long shot.
They do have a choice. They chose to enlist. They chose to follow orders. No one forced them to be a soldier and if they paid attention at all in history class, they should've known what to expect: governments go to war and they're willing to sacrifice young people's lives to achieve their goals.
dude its not part of Islam to protect yourself from invaders. THere is no quote in the Quran that says this. If a foreign country came into america and started shooting up the place, dont tell me you wouldnt run out with your shotgun to protect your home. Imagine man.. Bush sent out a televised broadcast to the Iraqi people 48 hours before the invasion basically putting the civilians under exile, insisting they leave their home to different countries such as Jordan for a war that has now lasted more than 5 years. So imagine, forced to leave your home, not knowing when you can go back, no place to stay, just having to wait a war out, which STILL has not ended. The US ILLEGALLY invaded Iraq while Bush was president, going against UN's refusal to engage in war making Bush a WAR CRIMINAL. (George Bush could still be awaiting trial, although judging how the government controls everything, i doubt it.)
did you not read the descriptions of the behavior of these soldiers??? do you really think a sane or rational person could ever decide to do that to another human. i don't feel that any amount of "victimhood" is ever a release of culpability in any crime.....except self-defense....which isn't really a crime, its more like "victimhood" prevention....but i digress
listen chief, my BA is in history and I can tell you I had no IDEA what the government was capable of or the horrors of our past until I went to college. You dont learn that sort of thing in high school, not in mine anyways. You learn about generic bullshit. And what level of education do you think most incoming soldiers have? War is glorified at all stages of youth. Video games, movies, all media.
I must admit I had a good teacher for one year of history class in high school (it was a World History class) and I learned more in that 1 year than I had in all my other history classes combined. Most of my learning about history took place outside of the classroom. You're definitely right. I still don't think ignorance or brainwashing should excuse them from the fact they made a choice to enlist. They consciously decided to sign away their rights. EDIT: What I was referring to with the history class comments is that I would assume (yea, I know, I was silly...) most soldiers have knowledge of the massive amount of casualties that usually happen in modern wars.
I agree with all statements above. Soldiers know that lots of people die in war, but when you are young, niave, and idealistic, you think they are dying for a real cause, something they can believe in. And until you learn the truth, you buy that, and you think its WORTH committing yourself to something like that. I was at basic training when I was 17 years old, turned 18 while I was there. Knowledge is power.