[Amnell]

Tenchu, I don't what history books you've been reading, but in Europe (at least), any time one kingdom went to war with another and occupied a village/town/or whatever, the people that were there were quite often... 'mistreated'. If you want an example, how about the things the English did to the Scots before the independence war there? From what I've read, Japan was no better, especially during their wars with Korea (pre-ww2). Napolean's people weren't exactly a prime example, either.

I'll repeat myself: you always get a group of fuck-ups who think that because they have a rifle they can do whatever they want and totally trash the image of their country by being trigger-happy or raping or w/e else those guys did.

Not to say that we fought a clean war in vietnam (is there such thing as a clean war?)...

This might just be a semantics debate, now, but I think of a slaughter as what the Japanese did to POWs in WW2. Example: On one island, they herded a couple hundred US GI's into a small building and dropped bombs on it. That's a slaughter. Collateral damage is a tragedy. Dropping bombs on villages to cut off supply lines was tragic, and not the best way to achieve that goal, though I can understand why: like using the nukes in Japan, it was just faster. Unlike in Japan, though, bombing villages in 'Nam probably was not an absolute necessity. Anyway....

There's always a humane way to kill someone. That's the way that is least uncomfortable. That is why we typically use injections to euthanize aged or sick pets and criminals: they're virtually painless. Coming from the side of violence, a bullet to the back of the head is probably the most humane way to kill someone since it kills instantly, before the person can actually feel the pain.

I'm not exactly a big fan of the needless deaths of children (or anyone). Neither is anyone else in my country; Tenchu, do you even realize how unpopular the Vietnam war was in America? Do you know why? Because we were killing civilians/kids/women, because we were in it for 20 years, because we lost a damn lot of our own boys over there, did I mention because we were killing civilians/kids/women? All the stuff was caught on film and broadcast on the news back home and people back home could actually see what was going on, and no one was happy about it. No one wanted that war. We had more peace protests during that era in this country than probably any country at any time up to that point. With the possible exception of the Vietnamese citizens, no one was more unhappy about that war than we were.

I think what Tyrien was asking for is a little supporting evidence that our forces have directly targeted civilians and weren't trying to get at something military that happened to be surrounded by civilians or weren't attacked first. Tyrien should specify what he's asking for himself, though :P .