
How We Learned to Kill - mayukh
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/how-we-learned-to-kill.html
======
swatow
I find it very strange that people talk about soldiers as if they had some
special moral responsibility for what happens during a war.

Sure, they should be thinking about the implications and ethics of their
actions, as we all should, and yet they also signed up to serve the nation,
and to do what their nation thought necessary and just. Do people think that
democratic nations should not have armies, and it is an ethical imperative for
Americans, English and others to refuse to serve? If not, then it is all of
our responsibilities, as voters and citizens, to ensure that only just wars
are fought, and using ethical means. If not, then we are all responsible, not
just the soldiers.

Instead of asking "how could you kill someone" we should be asking "how can
you live in a political system that causes people to be ordered to kill
people, in which you have the ability to change this fact".

I'm not a pacifist myself, I just don't see how in a democracy, the buck stops
with the soldiers.

~~~
vacri
When you volunteer as a soldier to be deployed to a war zone and kill people
(or directly support other soldiers killing), you have a special moral
responsibility for what happens during a war.

 _and to do what their nation thought necessary and just._

The US did not think that invading Iraq was 'just'. Iraq was a defeatable foe,
and the war in Afghanistan wasn't producing results. There was nothing 'just'
about the invasion of Iraq by the US - if the US did invade places because the
dictator is nasty, they'd be a _lot_ more militarily involved in Africa.

I don't understand why Americans don't hold people who volunteer to go fight
overseas to a stricter moral questioning. It's a total cop-out to say "well, I
was doing it for my country, and my country wanted to go do it". The comments
you make about refusing to serve are not appropriate; there was no
conscription.

 _it is all of our responsibilities, as voters and citizens_

In a four-year election cycle, how does a voter have an effect on a war late
in year 3 started because of an unrelated-but-significant event in year 1?

Basically the buck stops with the soldiers for the same reason that soldiers
should decline to follow an immoral order. Otherwise you absolve them morally
of anything their nation requires of them: hello Auschwitz guards. It's also
an oversimplification, a false binary choice, to say that the buck can't stop
in multiple places. It stops with the soldiers. It also stops with the
politicians. It's not like there's only one entity responsible for something
like this.

~~~
woodman
> When you volunteer ... you have a special moral responsibility for what
> happens during a war.

A responsibility for your actions, or everything that happens during the war?
What if your voluntary enlistment was due to false information, or steady
conditioning by the state since childhood? Does intent play no role? Do you
extend that line of thinking to the justice system where manslaughter and
murder are treated differently?

> The US did not think that invading Iraq was 'just'.

Opinion polls were pretty high at the time. The righteousness of the invasion,
from a legal perspective, was pretty firm - UN buy-in, Saddam later admitting
that he was intentionally trying to make his possession of WMDs uncertain,
continuous violation of no fly zones, etc. From a strict moral perspective
that observes principles of nonaggression, no - it was not just.

> I don't understand why Americans don't hold people who volunteer to go fight
> overseas to a stricter moral questioning.

Because the majority of people, not just Americans, don't deeply consider the
morality of things like that. Consider the logical conclusion of this line of
thinking. Your position is essentially that the state does not have the
authority to define righteousness kills. If one were to accept that position,
then the state would not have a monopoly on violence - which is pretty much
the yardstick for state sovereignty. This is a position that is morally and
logically consistent, but obviously not widely held.

> ... how does a voter have an effect ...

How about not reelecting a president to a second term when he started the war
in the first term?

> ... soldiers should decline to follow an immoral order.

There is an obligation to refuse _illegal_ orders, this gets back to my point
about the majority of people not deeply considering the morality of actions,
and deferring to the state.

~~~
jacquesm
You can't really push that sort of responsibility up. You own it.

I'm a conscientious objector because of that, not because I'm a pacifist (far
from it). Reduced to the simplest of arguments: if everybody thought that way
the only people that would end up pushing for a fight would be the politicians
but they never ever want to get their hands dirty, problem solved. Don't be
someone else's tool.

As for the 'righteousness of the invasion': I'm not sure if we lived in the
same world at the time but from a legal perspective it was - and is - a total
sham and UN buy-in hinged on the UN not being lied to which is something that
we know for a fact happened.

Colin Powell's stature never recovered after that ill fated speech.

> Because the majority of people, not just Americans, don't deeply consider
> the morality of things like that.

That's not entirely true either. Flag worshipping, supporting the troops and
other nationalistic elements are not equally present in all countries, America
has these in spades. Very few countries in the world are so gung-ho about
going to war as the US is.

> How about not reelecting a president to a second term when he started the
> war in the first term?

That's one of the problems right there, America likes to see itself at war
against overseas foes, _nothing_ brings out support for the sitting president
as a war does. See the Bush quote: "I'm a war president". That made all the
difference in getting him re-elected in the first place, critical thinking
does not enter into it.

> There is an obligation to refuse illegal orders, this gets back to my point
> about the majority of people not deeply considering the morality of actions,
> and deferring to the state.

I've decided that the buck stops with _me_.

If someone ever invades the country where I live I'll be more than happy to do
my bit _but_ in the meantime I won't allow myself to be used as a tool for
political ends whose murky origins (business, empire building, posturing,
political careerism) are purposefully obscured.

~~~
woodman
> You can't really push that sort of responsibility up. You own it.

That is pretty unrealistic. I agree with you about ignoring intent, but I also
recognize the fact that at present this sort of philosophy would not work in a
world dominated by states.

> ... the only people that would end up pushing for a fight would be the
> politicians ...

Or defense contractors. In a world where the majority of people believe in
ghosts, it is not likely that things will work out in the way you think they
would. I'm pretty confident that the US would start exercising its legal
authority in drafting military aged males. I can already hear you saying "But
they'd refuse!", but that would require you to ignore history.

> I'm not sure if we lived in the same world at the time but from a legal
> perspective...

I'm guessing not, because you seem to have forgotten all the games played with
UN weapons inspectors and violation of no fly zones.

> That's not entirely true either. Flag worshipping...

Actually, the same logic that dismantles the moral authority of the state's
power to wage war, dismantles the moral authority of every other state power.
So obviously this sort of moral analysis is not occurring regularly, because
the world is full of states. I have no doubt that there are a lot of countries
full of people who are less predisposed to military expeditions than
Americans, but my point is that it isn't due to deep moral reflection.

> That made all the difference in getting him re-elected in the first place,
> critical thinking does not enter into it.

And yet you are expecting widespread moral reflection from the very same
people.

> I've decided that the buck stops with me.

That is great and all, but not every effective in terms of systemic change. If
you really want war to go away, then you need to get rid of the state. That is
the reason I got involved with development in the bitcoin ecosystem several
years ago, popularization would likely deal a killing stroke to the state.

~~~
jacquesm
Bitcoin has nothing to do with waging war or the end of the state.

As for me being unrealistic: it's my life, I'll be happy to live it without
ever having to say that I allowed myself to be used whatever the consequences,
and yes, I would refuse.

Defense contractors can't wage war without people willing to operate the
weapons, the circle of concern/circle of influence nicely overlaps if you
simply say 'I refuse'.

That's where you exert maximum pressure. Developing bitcoin to stop wars is
about as relevant as invading Iraq was as a response to 9/11.

As for the no-fly zones and the UN weapon inspectors:

(1) the no-fly zone was a unilateral arrangement, how do you think the US
would respond if some entity declared a no-fly zone over the US?

(2) the UN weapons inspectors were in agreement that Saddam did _not_ possess
a credible threat of WMDs.

It's all just dumb wars over resources no more, no less.

~~~
woodman
> Bitcoin has nothing to do with waging war or the end of the state.

Cash is just as important in war as bodies to throw into the meat grinder. If
the state loses its control over the money supply, it isn't going to be able
to finance war... or exert much influence otherwise.

> As for me being unrealistic: it's my life, I'll be happy...

Cool, I thought you were interested in solving a problem outside of yourself -
carry on.

> Defense contractors can't wage war without people willing to operate the
> weapons...

There will always be people to operate the weapons, offer more money or tell
them that their god demands it.

> As for the no-fly zones and the UN weapon inspectors:

Yeah, I'm not going to argue about facts - first result in google:
[http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-
inspe...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-inspections-
fast-facts/)

> It's all just dumb wars over resources no more, no less.

Agreed, but the original point was about legal justification, not actual
agenda.

------
transfire
Imagine if we took the commandment "Thou shall not kill" to heart. Imagine if
instead of killing those men on the roadside, it was the job to the soldiers
to incapacitate them but take them alive. Is it possible? Of course it is
possible. Perhaps harder, but possible.

Here's the funny thing about killing. Somehow we continually find excuses for
doing it. And the easiest excuse of all is that the other guy did it first.
And so it goes round and round and never stops, forever escalating. And it
won't stop, until we stop making excuses.

~~~
xvedejas
Well, when it comes to firearms, incapacitation doesn't work quite like the
movies show. You can't just hit someone in the arm/leg every time (aiming is
harder than that), and even if you do it will fairly likely kill them anyway.
If you really want to priorize incapacitating enemy soldiers, you're going to
have to use different weapons than firearms, weapons that are probably shorter
range and slower. That isn't a practical option when the enemy soldiers have
guns themselves.

I'm all for peace but telling your own soldiers not to kill could be a very
good way to get many of your own soldiers killed.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We could use some serious development in non-lethal weapons, but I'm afraid it
might not solve anything - non-lethal weaponry is by definition more
complicated by lethal, and thus any technology designed to stun could be
repurposed to kill with more effectiveness than the bloodless variant. We'd
probably need to reach the level when there would be no practical difference
of effectiveness between the two types.

~~~
bane
One of the fascinating things to come out of the widespread distribution of
non-lethal weapons to police has been two effects:

1 - police are more likely to use non-lethal weapons, even in cases where no
weapon at all would work fine, because the long-term consequences of using a
non-lethal are minimal

2 - in cases where people _do_ die due to being attacked by a non-lethal
weapon, there's generally quite a bit of moral outrage that the weapon was
used at all, even if it was well warranted

I suspect if soldiers were issued stun weapons tomorrow, we'd see both of
these come true and people would still cry foul when some percentage of
targets inevitably died as the result of the use of the non-lethal weapon, and
rules of engagement would be vastly changed to virtually eliminate the idea of
escalation of force, just go in shooting and sort it out later.

~~~
Spooky23
There's a difference between an army and a police force. Police are there to
enforce the law and neutralize criminals.

Generally speaking, the police don't want to kill anyone. They want to capture
the suspect and move on. Back in the day, non-lethal force meant beating the
guy with a big stick, but liability became an issue. So now we pull guns on
dumb kids, and a jumpy cop results in a dead dum kid instead of a broken arm.

Armies are different. Since the US Civil War, total annihilation of the
enemy's ability to make war has been the rule of the day. You err on the side
of killing, becuase a stunned enemy lives to fight another day.

~~~
angersock
So, on your last point, you're sort of missing an important part of absolute
war:

Against a fair enemy, the "ability to make war" becomes the problem of
destroying capital of the enemy (factories, railroads, etc.). Against an enemy
that doesn't have any sort of indigenous weapons production or roads to speak
of, the "ability to make war" consists of the problem of destroying the
manpower of the enemy.

So, we notice that while we bombed Germany and Japan, less than three decades
later they were banging along--and we notice that when we spend a decade in
Iraq and Afghanistan, we end up just playing whack-a-mole with hapless
militia.

------
woodman
It is always an interesting experience when you recognize a little of your old
self in somebody else, projection is really tempting. My head was in the same
place almost ten years ago, after Fallujah - the end justifies the means. That
is pretty much what the final two paragraphs say - yeah it is shitty, but the
end justifies the means. This is a big step beyond "They hate us for our
freedoms!", but still falls short of acknowledging the fact that a universally
preferable end state isn't likely to be reached through violence or threats of
violence. I wouldn't be surprised if the Captain Kudo eventually arrives at
that conclusion.

------
TeMPOraL
A very good and honest article.

Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end:

> _I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our
> elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the
> Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road._

Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most
power, and that he can wield it arbitrarily. It's not true. You _don 't get to
be a President_ of a country if you're not up to your eyeballs with
connections and mutual favour-based relationships. Nobody is going to let you
become President if you're the type of person that could seriously endanger
the entrenched status quo based on your whims. Such people are filtered out
earlier in the process. I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is
one of the least real power in actual politics.

~~~
universaltest
While I agree that the President is not really able to shake things up any
more than his political allies will allow, the quoted statement does beg the
question: Who is handing out the orders?

Who is it that we blame for putting soldiers in a position to kill innocents
for reasons of such dubious morality?

------
alextgordon
There was a BBC doc about Sandhurst a few years ago where they showed how they
train recruits to kill people.

Basically it involves the delightfully low-tech method of having recruits
charge towards a bag of grass cuttings and stabbing it in the gut with their
bayonet while chanting "KILL!"

One of the recruits was so freaked out by the whole thing that he quit soon
afterwards.

Here it is:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo)

(46:11)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771)

------
littletimmy
Life as an Afghani farmer:

> Be farming your land in peace

> Some Saudis blow up shit

> US attacks Afghanistan

> Try to keep out of trouble

> See clear skies one night and want to irrigate land

> Carry tools in a package, start digging

> Get shot by highly trained killer cuz you are potentially a terrorist

> WTF.gif

------
jetskindo
It's ok to kill because it is an order. I bet the other side feels the same
way. Just an order

------
sebastianconcpt
War is the institutionalization of selective sociopathy.

This is quite illustrative:

"For a while after I ordered the Marine to take that first shot, everything we
did seemed acceptable. It revealed that killing could be banal. Each day would
bring a new threat that needed to be eliminated"

------
huj123
>I focused on lessons I had learned reading Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On
Killing,”

Dave Grossman reportedly cites someone named S. L. A. Marshall who made the
claim that only a small percentage of infantry ever fired their weapons, to
support the idea that most people have some natural reluctance to kill in
battle. I just want to point out that there is zero evidence for this claim:
[https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/shoot-to-
kill/](https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/shoot-to-kill/)

~~~
001sky
This link is annecdotal gibberish.

~~~
huj123
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Controversy_af...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Controversy_after_death)

People have looked for the evidence for his claim but can't find it. I've had
people repeat the claim to me and cite Grossman or Marshall, but when I asked
them to give a specific source for it they couldn't.

------
fit2rule
So when are we going to learn to bridge the gap, forgive and flourish with our
enemies-become-friends? Or, is that just too darn hard?

~~~
Scramblejams
It's very hard to do if the other side won't agree to sing campfire songs with
us too. Especially if they'd rather violently impose Sharia through a
worldwide caliphate, to use one contemporary example. Gotta pay the Dhimmi
before we can forgive and flourish.

Yes, there are a lot of reasonable people on the other side of the line. But
the leadership of those reasonable people can, depending on who you're talking
about, be very, very unreasonable.

~~~
vacri
_Especially if they 'd rather violently impose Sharia through a worldwide
caliphate, to use one contemporary example._

What a weird example. ISIS wouldn't exist today if it weren't for the US
destroying Iraq as a regional power.

~~~
gambiting
But maybe something else would. You don't know that. And there were and are
people who want to impose Sharia violently even without ISIS.

~~~
vacri
Since we're playing the "you don't know that" game, you don't know that it
wouldn't have gone the other way. Maybe the Arab Spring might have taken hold
in Iraq. Maybe the UN might have found a better diplomatic solution if the US
hadn't pre-empted them by invading.

One of the criticisms against the US invading was that the US had no plan for
what to do after the military victory, and that Hussein was a stabilising
power in the region; remove him and chaos would ensue if things weren't
handled carefully.

 _And there were and are people who want to impose Sharia violently_

And instead they got people who wanted to impose Freedom(tm) violently...
quite violently. I wonder if it matters to the average Kurd if their loved
ones get beheaded, gassed, or "collateral damage"'d.

------
known
It's highly "subjective"

------
myrandomcomment
This story is accurate to a fault.

------
goodnights
No, you didn't learn to kill. You were selected because of your trust in
authority and lack of responsibility. Soldiers shouldn't ask for permission to
shoot, especially not "snipers". The whole thing is just a charade to enable
diffusion of responsibility.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility)

~~~
Retra
This is ridiculous. Soldiers aren't 'selected' for their trust in authority
and lack of responsibility. And they _are_ supposed to ask for permission to
shoot. _Especially_ snipers.

I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience
with military.

Hey, lets look at some US Marine Corps ROE documentation:

"We must review all aspects of the fight, from weaponeering to the
understanding of proportionate force. Training needs to be discussion and
scenario based, thus forcing Marines to articulate their perceptions of and
responses to the situations. “Wrong” answers should not be reprimanded but
need to be explored further. This will take time, but we cannot allow
wallflowers to escape participation. We must further empower subordinate unit
leaders to continue the training at their levels."

Virtually everything the US military teaches is contrary to what you've
stated.

~~~
goodnights
"I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any
experience with military."

I spent 15 months of conscription in one of those "small team, heavy backpack,
green beret"-type units.

A sniper operates as part of a self-sustaining team to take down high value
targets, often trough infiltration. It's self explanatory why a real sniper
wouldn't ask for permission nor why no one would ever, despite what the movies
tell you, tell them to "take the shot". Like in any high risk activity you are
the one who is going to have to deal with the consequences of your actions and
should therefor operate, as much as possible, at your own discretion.

These guys aren't snipers, they are sharpshooters on guard duty. They might as
well be outsourced to some guy with a playstation controller in the future.

"Virtually everything the US military teaches is contrary to what you've
stated."

I doubt that. On the other hand the US military isn't exactly known for being
competent.

~~~
Retra
Is there any military that is known for being competent?

~~~
goodnights
It's relative, but yes. Spend some time with people who served under the UN
and you'll hear all about it.

------
mrottenkolber
He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just
walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they
left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads.
Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are
higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this
really what it boils down to? This sort of behavior is not acceptable for a
human being, heck its not acceptable for an animal being or a plant. Amazing
how these "soldiers" are _multiple magnitudes_ less civilized than any insect
I can think of right now.

What kind of demented questions is "can we shoot them?" anyways. Don't shoot
unless shot upon. No you can never just shoot somebody.

And that he has the balls to try to justify his mass murders after the fact is
way beyond me.

Edit: Deleting my sub comments because the discussion has gone completely off
topic. Guys write your own top level comment and describe your view in one
coherent piece. This piecemeal snowball-fight leads nowhere and nobody can be
asked to get into a pitiful mud fight with 100 different people at the same
time. I realize its my own mistake I should never have replied to any of them,
especially the sub-thread about cats. Seriously guys?

~~~
TeMPOraL
This is war. A place of snap decisions, unfortunately. Sure, I personally
would like US soldiers, or for that matter my own country's soldiers, to wage
war like United Federation of Planets - diplomacy, diplomacy, and if that
fails, set phasers to stun. But we don't have phasers. Nowdays, if you run at
your enemy with a taser, you'll get shot to death before you're halfway there.

I'm not defending the atrocities many a soldier committed on purpose. There
are many unforgivable things that happen during war. But in the current shape
of warfare, you can't blame soldiers for using lethal force against a
perceived lethal threat. Let's develop phasers with stun settings that are as
effective as guns, and then we can go back to this conversation.

EDIT: Come on. Off-topic or not, you're breaking the conversation flow by
deleting your responses. Those comments are useful for context even if some of
us disagree with them.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
"you can't blame soldiers for using lethal force against a perceived lethal
threat."

Did you realise how that phrase is incredibly dangerously close to this other
one:

"You can't blame a Government for preventively imprison or kill someone
because some of its bureaucrat has perceived threat" ?

You bliss the first one and you have nothing left to contain the other one
from happening

Unless you are a believer of the capability to self-refrain of an ever
expanding Government.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Did you realise how that phrase is incredibly dangerously close to this
> other one_

It's not. Because soldiers are thrown into battle and forced to make snap
decisions that determine whether they'll live or die the very next second,
while the Government has both more time for deliberation and much, much wider
range of possible actions to take.

> _You bliss the first one and you have nothing left to contain the other one
> from happening_

This does not follow. My point was - if they're shooting at you and you're not
allowed to run, what can you do except shoot back? The problem is with those
who put you in a position where you're getting shot at.

> _Unless you are a believer of the capability to self-refrain of an ever
> expanding Government._

Of course I don't. I just feel that focusing on front-line soldiers is the
wrong place to start solving this problem.

------
copsarebastards
I want to ask Timothy Kudo if there was anything else he knew about the men
digging by the side of the road that indicated to him that they were planting
a bomb. Because if not, he's just a murderer. By the description in that
article, he did not have nearly enough information to decide that those men
should die.

America was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty".
Timothy Kudo was acting as judge and jury for these men and found them guilty
with almost no evidence. There are numerous reasons why someone might be
digging next to the road at night.

It's only by chance that he happened to be right. He uses the phrase "good
shoot, bad result", but if that is the standard he's using for "good shoot", I
wonder how many of his kills were "bad shoot, good result".

And it's ridiculous to isolate the responsibility for this kind of action to
the soldiers. This is on everyone who accept this as okay--the voters who vote
for warmongering politicians, the politicians who start wars and create
decision policies that say a shot like this is okay, the officers who give the
orders, and the troops on the ground that follow them.

~~~
Happydayz
The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is generally not used in
warfare. This isn't an American thing; it's long been part of the customary /
traditional rules governing lawful conflict.

To provide an easy to understand example why; you would not have to have a
legal proceeding to determine that someone wearing a grey uniform with an iron
cross on it was in fact a German soldier during WWI. Visual recognition, even
from a distance (of the kind that would cause serious cross-examination in a
domestic court), is sufficient to make the call that he is an enemy combatant.

Soldiers are absolutely empowered to act as judge, juror, and executioner, and
are given significant latitude in determining who is and is not a lawful
combatant.

It is worth noting that this Marine officer was acting under not just US rules
of engagement, but also NATO ROEs. Those ROEs would have been vetted by the
lawyers of all the NATO members, who already abide by some of the most
historically rigorous applications of the laws of war.

As for whether Kudo knew anything else about the men digging on the side of
the road. The answer is probably not. But, he also knew a lot about the
cultural context in which they were operating, and leveraged that to make an
informed judgment call about how to proceed. Regardless of whether you
personally think that was moral or not, the fact is that it was legally
permissible under internationally agreed upon laws of warfare.

~~~
copsarebastards
> The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is generally not used in
> warfare. This isn't an American thing; it's long been part of the customary
> / traditional rules governing lawful conflict.

You don't get to just stop doing the right thing because a war started.
Customs/traditions aren't an excuse for murder.

> To provide an easy to understand example why; you would not have to have a
> legal proceeding to determine that someone wearing a grey uniform with an
> iron cross on it was in fact a German soldier during WWI. Visual
> recognition, even from a distance (of the kind that would cause serious
> cross-examination in a domestic court), is sufficient to make the call that
> he is an enemy combatant.

Surely you can see how this is much clearer than people digging next to a
road.

> It is worth noting that this Marine officer was acting under not just US
> rules of engagement, but also NATO ROEs. Those ROEs would have been vetted
> by the lawyers of all the NATO members, who already abide by some of the
> most historically rigorous applications of the laws of war.

And Nazis were "just taking orders". What's your point? Just because the
authorities say it's okay to murder someone doesn't mean it's okay to murder
someone.

> Regardless of whether you personally think that was moral or not, the fact
> is that it was legally permissible under internationally agreed upon laws of
> warfare.

And it shouldn't be.

Your defense of Kudo's actions is basically: "Law made by Western powers says
that what Western powers do is okay, so it's okay!" Fuck that noise. This is
just murder.

If you're killing someone, you'd better have a damn good reason, and you'd
better be damn sure you're right. Kudo wasn't, but he killed those men anyway.

