the part of the world. Even Iraq's neighbors were horrified at its barbaric behavior. The
United States, by carefully targeting military objectives and using minimum destructive
force, brought the war to a speedy resolution with minimum loss of friendly forces. The
Iraqi military machine was in ruin and the American forces went home to a hero's
welcome, after a ground war that lasted only a few days. The fact that our soldiers can
be prosecuted for law of war violations may not always deter them. In a combat zone,
some soldiers will commit acts of malingering (self-destruction), and may be willing to
do almost anything to get out of combat and into safety. At least in jail, nobody is
shooting at them. If they can get a trip back to Leavenworth, they might welcome that.
So, the fact that this is the law is, of course, a reason for following the rules. It is an
important reason; it is not, however the only reason.
(2) Foreign relations/world opinion. Think back to images of My Lai, which
still haunt our military almost 30 years later. What effect did the bodies of murdered
children and their mothers/fathers/brothers/sisters have on world opinion toward the US
effort in Viet Nam? Photographs of the massacre, literally, sent a shock wave around
the world. It was an absolute public relations nightmare for the US, causing uproar in
the world press and in Congress. It did more to hurt the US war effort than anything
North Vietnamese propaganda could have ever hoped to accomplish. It made many of
our own people (to include our own soldier's question who we were and what we were
fighting for. Such a loss of morale can, of course, be devastating. Advances in
communications allow for instantaneous news coverage. During Desert Shield/Storm,
the media was everywhere, as it was when our troops landed in Somalia. During the
Gulf War, the media sent home pictures of our soldiers liberating Kuwait and receiving
surrendering Iraqi POWs who were trying to turn themselves in to American soldiers,
American journalists, or anyone from our Country. Think about what that did to
strengthen our morale and war effort, both for the troops over there, and those back
home. Think about how this looked as the press flashed the images across the world.
Indeed, the news media can help coalesce public and world opinion to support the war
effort, or to question and challenge it.
(3) Domestic public opinion/publicity. Similar to world opinion and how we
are viewed by the press, look at what the My Lai Massacre did to home front support of
the war effort. Violating the law makes our allies, the American people, Congress, the
press and, indeed, even our own soldiers, question our war effort. This loss of support
can be crippling to our soldiers who are fighting a war on strange and foreign soil.
During Desert Shield/Storm, school children across America sent presents to our
soldiers and wrote them letters; there were prayer vigils across the land as our soldiers
went into harm's way. Our soldiers took with them the thoughts of our entire nation, and
they knew it. Words cannot measure the importance of that kind of support. Imagine,
though, how America would have reacted if they saw images of murdered children
laying in ditches across the desert, the handiwork of our soldiers-do you think our
school children would have sent the letters and presents? More likely we would have
set off demonstrations across the land against our own soldiers. Americans regard
themselves as fighting war for noble purposes. Defending tiny nation like Kuwait
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