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The whole point of this article is that the technology and tactics employed did *not* destroy with no risk to the soldiers involved. The point is that the nature of fighting a counterinsurgency of this kind requires going out in small numbers and exposing soldiers to extreme amounts of risk in an extremely tense and dangerous environment. This kind of stress and fear results in the bad decision-making that led to the killings described. Nevertheless a major function of the NCO corps and, especially, the officer corps is to maintain a morally proper environment in the face of bad situations and difficult decisions, which the officers in the battalion clearly failed to do--indeed, they apparently actively contributed to the degradation of moral decision-making in the sniper section.
Individual responsibility is important; the snipers on the ground made the wrong decisions and should have been punished, but it is disgraceful that the only guy to face jail time, out of everybody involved, was the lowest-ranking enlisted soldier.
Among the greatest tragedies of this occupation is the way it has degraded the moral fabric of the armed forces.
