War crimes are as old as war, and thus as old as mankind itself. Homer’s Iliad—Western civilization’s first great work of literature—is about one, after all. It chronicles Achilles’ inexorable moral collapse during the last days of the Trojan War. His prolonged ethical erosion and self-debasement culminates in a vile transgression: the desecration and mutilation of Hector, Troy’s greatest hero, whom Achilles had just vanquished in battle.
They are hard to look at. But they are also hard to really understand. The unfathomability of warfare among those who have not lived through it in no way excuses what, from a safe remove, are morally objectionable behaviors. But an appreciation of just how traumatic and dehumanizing prolonged combat can be is a useful exercise in compassion and empathy. There are few practices in human existence more elemental, and few harder for those who have not experienced it to comprehend, than the stark contest of armed combat. Warfare—by design—cheapens the value of human life. Are we really so surprised, then, that soldiers—no matter their nationality, creed or color—frequently take a more cavalier attitude toward the dead than broader society? In earlier eras, a soldier’s delight simply to be alive, and a frequently understandable hatred of enemy, used to result in a stripping of the foe’s body of armor. In more modern times, it might be the plundering of weapons or uniform insignia. Today, it is easier to just snap a photo that says: “My enemy is dead. I am alive. And I am very happy about that.”
Read more at Time