That video was taken during the initial invasion. During the first few days, as I recall. That helicopter was very likely hundreds of kilometers out in front of the advancing ground forces. And no unarmed dustoff (medivac) pilot is going to fly into the middle of an active high-intensity battlefield just to help some wounded Iraqi soldiers, I don't think. Especially if they're just as likely to shoot him as thank him once he got there. What you were watching was one little action in a very large, very high-intensity war, it was not some humanitarian aid or relief effort.

If it's "unwritten" then it really does not exist at all, for all practical, legal, moral or ethical purposes. The "written" stuff we do follow to the letter, situation permitting. I think we have a better record of compliance on that subject than any other military force in the world.

First you have to actually take the terrain itself, and only then can you begin to worry about winning hearts and minds. Those pilots were trying to clear ground that had not even been taken by US forces yet. It still belonged to Saddam Hussein and his army. Maybe they should have sent an ambulance or a medivac to help those guys?

Given what they did to those four contractors (civilians) that they ambushed, killed, mutilated, and hung from a bridge, I don't think some Iraqi's would hesitate one second to kill any injured American soldier they could, any way they could. When they set off roadside bombs and kill their own people and ours, military and civilian alike, I don't doubt for a single second that they'd be willing to commit any kind of atrocity at all -- they seem to be quite proud of such behavior, in fact.

BTW: Ryan = Pfc. Jessica Lynch? Just wondering. The reason she lived is because some civilian doctors and nurses at the Iraqi hospital where she was brought risked their lives to protect her. Read the news accounts. Watch her own media interview. They actually talked to the Iraqi doctors and nurses that kept her safe from the Iraqi military guys. You should keep up with the news.

As much as I dislike Bush, he is certainly not on the ground over there himself, giving orders, and you can't claim that he has ever authorized any illegal actions on the part of his troops. What an individual soldier does on the battlefield is his own personal responsibility - legally, ethically and morally.

Looking at this all from another angle, please at least consider this. The Iraqi's have proven time and again that they respect power and strength far more than kind words. If you act nice they believe you are weak. If you kick their asses good they respect you for it.

I was just reading a very recent analysis of the Falluja/Najaf situation. The Mayor of Falluja himself told the American military commanders there that one of the reasons that they are having so much trouble there right now is because the US recently pulled the 82nd Airborne Division out of Falluja and replaced them with the Marines. The new Marine commander's plan for Falluja was based on a set of military doctrines called the "Small Wars" doctrine, that was developed during our deployments to South America some years ago. The "Small Wars" doctrine is basically a "Hearts and Minds" type of doctrine. It's definitely a humanitarian approach to a military situation. The Mayor of Falluja said this was " A big mistake trying to be nice around these insurgents". He said, and I quote: "The militants were scared to death of the 82nd's paratroopers; that's why they laid low and caused little trouble while they were still here. They have seen the Marines take a much softer approach, which they do not respect, and this is why we have all these problems now."

Maybe he's right. Maybe all they really respect over there is sheer force or outright brutality. Decades under Saddam may have made that tendency worse, but it seems to be a fairly standard attitude all across the Arab world. They respect strength, and they respect anyone having the "will" to use their strength. They seem to have no respect at all for what they see as weakness.

I understand your points on being humane in the conduct of hostilities. I think we are. Far more than any other nation I've ever seen on the battlefield, anyway.

Look at your own country for instance -- there are certainly plenty of examples that I could point to of truly terrible, unbelievable atrocities that you guys committed down in South America and elsewhere over the years, aren't there? You destroyed whole cultures and obliterated entire indigenous races without so much as a thought, in your day. How do you explain or justify that? I'm not trying to insult you; I'm just pointing out that every country has done things that were not necessarily considered to be very nice (morally or ethically) by many other countries, at some point in time or another.

I think we do as well as we possibly can, given the situations we find ourselves in, and the types of people that we have to deal with. If you guys think you can do better, then by all means, go over there and try. I don't think we (the US) should be over there at all. I really don't. Not in Iraq, anyway. Why don't you guys go over there, if you really care about the poor Iraqi people as much as you claim? Then you could say that you really give a shit, and you might actually be believed.

My own hunch is that each and every war is totally unique; each is totally different. Not only does technology evolve over time, but tactics do as well. A little over a century ago armies lined up in neat ranks, marched toward each other and then slashed or blasted away at each other until one side finally lost their nerve, broke ranks and retreated. The English were totally horrified and disgusted when early American patriots (or revolutionary terrorists, depending on which side you were on) began to hide behind trees and rocks and fences and shoot at them. It was considered "ungentlemanly" in the extreme. Revolutionary American troops were looked upon as being no better than the savage, heathen Indians were. Barbaric! But they were not idiots, and their style of fighting was an inevitable tactical evolution in warfare that definitely proved it's worth over time, and now nobody fights on an open field in tidy little ranks any more, not even the English themselves.

Maybe the Iraqi's (and also to some extent the Afghans) are forcing us to evolve and to change our tactics, just as we forced the English (and everybody that came after them) to evolve, and to change theirs? Maybe it's simply inevitable. The warfare of the future is bound to be much different than the warfare of the present, just as the warfare of the present is vastly different from the warfare of the past. Maybe we all have to learn to just accept this evolution as a universal inevitability if we're going to continue to allow ourselves to indulge in war at all.