Why does distance ameliorate a war crime?  by Hiroaki Sato  NEW
YORK — One aspect of the modern sense of war, be it delusional,
duplicitous or both, was palpable in two articles paired at the
top of the front page of The New York Times toward the end of
September. The headline of one said “Drug Use Cited In Killings
of 3 Civilians”; the headline of the other, “CIA INTENSIFIES
DRONE CAMPAIGN WITHIN PAKISTAN.”  One had to do with old-
fashioned murder by infantrymen on the ground, the other with
ultramodern murder by electronically operated vehicles in the
sky. Those involved in the former sometimes face charges of war
crime. Those involved in the latter face no such bother — though
they may be at times “criticized” for their incompetence.  The
main points of the first story are these: Five soldiers in a
U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan are investigated by a military
court in Washington State for killing three unarmed Afghan
civilians on three separate occasions earlier this year, for “no
apparent reason.” They are