The atrocities carried out by young confused men, doing what they have been told they are supposed to do is one thing. They have to live with knowing what they have done - and that must be pretty hard to do, whether you're American, Vietnamese, German, Japanese, Israeli, British... Few of us are entitled to be certain that we mightn't have done the same kind of thing, given the same circumstances.

But the unforgivable guilt is that of the people higher up, all the way to the top, who sit in safety and give the orders, and fail in their duty to ensure that the troops under their command kep within the rules of war, and concealed the truth. The people who hardly ever face any any kind of war-crimes trial and never will in this life.