Killing people might ethically questionable

[Dottie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5036686.stm

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5033648.stm

These type of events seem to be almost inevitable in war, so my question is if and how you believe a government can prevent them from happening (aside from not starting wars) Will ethical lesions be fruitful, or are there other alternatives? Does the fact that there is no effective system of justice in place contribute, and if so how could you alleviate this?

Please leave all discussion about US foreign policy out of this thread. If you have any profound insights you can PM me, and I will hold fable personally responsible at a later date.

[Ravager]

Ethical lessons may well deter a few and I wonder why such a thing wasn't a component of training in the first place, really...
Though there will always be people both willing and able to take advantage of their positions in the least ethical ways, this is definitely better than nothing. As to the actual effect, I don't know.

Perhaps the military system could be made more transparent with soldiers encouraged to report on those not following the rules, even their superiors and some added incentives of some sort to encourage this reporting.

[Lestat]

Sadly enough, these are the consequences of asymmetrical war.

1. Guerilla warriors and terrorists hide among the common people, and even use them. This includes booby trapping bodies, disguising as women, using children as messengers (or even troops & spies).
2. Regular troops engaged in counterinsurgency as a consequence get distrusting of everyone, especially if they're not familiar with the people and habits, leading to widespread (and partially justified) paranoia.
3. "Accidents" as mentioned in the article happen.

I think, more than ethics courses, they need firm psychological follow-up by their superiors and intensive briefings on culture and habits of the country their operating. Arabic language courses would be a plus. The American soldiery is not enough "connected" to the people they are meant to protect (yes flame me, but that's part of their job). But it will always remain a problem in these kind of situations. The best strategy in the end is giving the populace enough reasons to side with counterinsurgency rather than insurgency to diminish the hiding capability of the insurgents, have informants and whatnot. That is all the more difficult for the Americans for being an alien force (not only in the sense of being foreign, but of having a totally different frame of reference; or in other words: Arab troops, e.g. Jordanian or Syrian, would be foreign, but not alien).