The Japanese were the worst offenders in WWII as they systematically enslaved women in occupied lands and moved them around like cattle.
The Germans and Soviets were a close second. While not outright enslaving, the rapes and murders of occupied women happened on a large scale. Even some Americans and Brits were guilty of this. The difference is that the US prosecuted many, while the Soviets never did.
I guess in times of war crap happens, so if they are thinking they are at war with us, then I guess we need to look at them very differently.
I can agree with you about the general case of treatment in pre-modern times and many areas involving recent conflicts But I believe that you are comparing apples and oranges. We in the Judeo-Christian-Greek civilization(s) have developed rules and standards of ‘civilized’ behavior that we deem governable even in warfare. While violations have occurred like Abu Ghraib and My Lai, the violators are punished.
Islam, in its writings and teachings and as the theocracy that is inherit in its very structure, greatly reflects the nomadic raiding culture that was its genesis under Mohammed and his successors. In the 3 centuries from Mohammed to Islam stretching from the Atlantic to India, all of the instructing teachings and commentaries were written as a conquering civilization with the right to take from the non-Muslim and for the most part, the morality of the culture froze in that pattern.
Thus we now face an alien viewpoint that uses the lessons and teachings of a successful conquering raider culture to associate in our modern world where modern technology gives the individual far more power than was ever dreamed of by the Sultan in Baghdad. We come from a cultural viewpoint that has been as much instructed by being the conquered as by being the conquerors.
Thus my argument with your posts is that you are not citing comparable examples. We of the West do not accept the precepts that allowed pirates to go a ‘Viking’ nor do we accept the idea that skin color or religious belief designates innate social and economic status. Neither are we accepting of genocidal war or ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, we face an activist theological culture that has never accepted religious reform in better than a 1,000 years and believes in the majority of its beliefs that it is an innately superior and conquering civilization. In our time and technological capability, this leads to nuclear nightmares and beheaded and raped innocents.