As reported In the UK's Independent the unpunished killing of innocent civilians by our troops fuels the Iraqi resistance:
An American patrol roared past us with the soldiers gesturing furiously with their guns for traffic to keep back on an overpass in central Baghdad. A black car with three young men in it did not stop in time and a soldier fired several shots from his machine gun into its engine.
The driver and his friends were not hit, but many Iraqis do not survive casual encounters with US soldiers. It is very easy to be accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty.
"We should end the immunity of US soldiers here," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. He admits, however, that this is extremely unlikely to happen given the US attitude to any sanctions against its own forces.
Full story at: http://tinyurl.com/8zzwk
How fitting that this report comes out as the torturer Generals of Abu Ghraib are cleared and a report clears the shooters of the Italian agent.
The full consequences of this policy of never ever ever admitting the US military does anything wrong are laid bare. The failure to punish equals more dead US soldiers.