"War leads to war crimes, and the only sure way to avoid that seems to be to avoid war."

Fully agree with the above statement but it raises the question of why, it seems, the general officers did not see these war crime incidents coming. Consequently, moving forward, if they are now expected, is there a better way to handle them? We seem to want to handle war crimes as a legal issue vs a laws of war issue. In my mind there is a significant difference. In Rules of Engagement? A Social Anatomy of an American War Crime. Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq., Mestrovic makes the point that when we go to prosecute the soldiers or Marines for a war crime, we do so with little or no evidence. It is very hard for anyone to collect legal evidence on a battle field; the plastic evidence bags make too good of a target as you seal them with your hands in front of your chest. In other words, I just can’t imagine a crime scene investigator stringing yellow crime scene tape across a battlefield. This then gets us into judicial water boarding http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/0...al-waterb.html that gives the appearance and perception of unfairness. Seems to me, we need to get the determination of a war crime away from the lawyers and back to the commanders.