Don't Blame The Troops

Atrocities and war crimes happen in every war or conflict. Its the nature of things. War brutalises human beings, and leads them to adopt attitudes and commit acts that they would not normally do. The Red Army committed many atrocities when they swept back Nazi Germany. That was not as some would have us beleive a consequence of Stalinist rule in the USSR, similar atrocities were committed during the Civil War when Trotsky was in command. True when he knew about them Trotsky had the perpetrators shot, but that doesn't change the fact that those atrocities were committed. Rosdolsky relates how even Bolshevik soldiers in the Red Army committed atrocities against Ukrainians just for speaking Ukrainian rather than Russian.


Yesterday the news ws full of the attack by an Israeli Tank crew on a UN school in Gaza. According to Israel the soldiers had come under fire from the school. I don't know if that is true, we probably never will know. It could be one of the atrocities referred to above. On the other hand there seems little to be gained for Israel or the individual soldiers from such an act in the full glare of international publicity. If the soldiers were under fire I find it very difficult to condemn them for responding. Urban warfare by its nature leads to civilian casualties. If a guerilla army uses civilians as human shields, and we know that Hamas has done so in the past, then such casualties are inevitable. An infrantryman that comes under rifle fire is not going to simply put themselves in danger, by not replying to that fire. A tank faced with mortar fire, or fire from an RPG is not going to do any different. I remember my Father saying that when he was involed in house to house fighting in Italy during the war they were told, if they needed telling that if you see something move you shoot first and ask questions after. We cannot blame soldiers placed in the firing line for trying to avoid being killed. Self-preservation is a vital aspect not only for humans but all animals.

I am happy to condemn those that send workers into battle, and create the kind of conditions that brutalise human beings. I am not prepared to condemn soldiers for doing what all of us would probably do in the same cicrcumstances.