Mr. Kerrey has said he was horrified to discover that, after returning fire on a hamlet in the dead of night after shots targeted his unit, civilian deaths resulted. If his accuser is telling the truth, it was an atrocity. It is naive to believe that American soldiers in the fog of battle are always able to avoid circumstances that in the cool calm of a New York media office seem to be atrocities. If this is to be the new standard, expect nearly every public figure who has ever fought for his life in a real shooting war to come under suspicion. War isn't just terrible.
War is hell, in the literal sense.
Nobody who passes through it is unscathed. It behooves people who haven't been through war to be circumspect in divining who the devils are.