Sheepdog Tip of the Day, Before Combat tip 118
The establishment of the enemy's guilt and the need to punish or avenge is a fundamental and widely accepted justification for violence. Most nations reserve the right to "administer" capital punishment, and if a state directs a soldier to kill a criminal who is guilty of a sufficiently heinous crime, then the killing can be readily rationalized as nothing more than the administration of justice. American wars have usually been characterized by a distinctive tendency toward moral rather than cultural distance. Cultural distance has been a little harder to develop in America's comparatively egalitarian culture with its ethnically and racially diverse population. In the American Revolution the Boston Massacre provided a degree of punishment justification, and the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self evident") represented the legal affirmation that set the tone for American wars for the next two centuries.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing
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