I'm going to defend this guy

This is an all around sad story.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US soldier jailed for Iraq murder

But I can't look at all of the facts and be critical of this soldier. They tried to rescue the victim, presumably at some risk to themselves before they decided he was too injured to save. Several of the other charges of "murder" are for similar instances. Not all of what has happened over there but most of the specific incidents I have seen fall into that category. The prisoner abuse being a specific exception to this. This kind of stuff happens in war. That's why we should not have them except when absolutely needed for our safety. And the Iraq war was was not such a case. No one with any brains at all ever could have believed it was or believed that the government really believed it was. So now we have this vague sense of guilt over what we are doing over there so we are selecting some soldiers to punish so we feel we are carrying out a moral war. We aren't. Most of these soldiers are scapegoats to protect the criminals and fools that sent them over there. They are victims themselves.