I somehow fail to grasp why someone would willingly submit to such a barbaric system.
That oath is only as honorable as the things you have to do because of it. Taking the oath does not absolve anyone of responsibility.
If you had reason to believe it would be a good thing, but it turned out not to be: time to admit you’ve made a mistake and to get out at the next opportunity. If you still have reason to believe that the good things outweigh the bad things: that’s great, keep going.
But please don’t hide behind your orders. History has taught us that it’s not a very good excuse.
Well, people do have doubts. The people involved have not explained any action they took to any independent investigation. And the Pentagon completely squandered any credibility they might have had by coming up with several contradictory made-up excuses during the first few days after the incident.
Or, to make up an analogy:
Someone gets run over by a car. The driver says, “He owed me money!”. Police look at him suspiciously. The driver then changes his story: “He had a gun!”, then realizes that the police would have found that gun, and changes his story again: “It was an accident!”. The driver then reviews videos from his own dashcam, which he won’t show to anyone else, and then concludes: “I really did nothing wrong, it was just an accident. Accidents happen. But I’ll try to drive more carefully in the future.”
Would you believe that driver, or would you suspect he’s hiding something?
