[SmoothTalker]

"Why should we be troubled if they're found guilty beyond reasonable doubt?"

Because this isn't traditional warfare between armies. We need the support of the Iraqi people to ultimately succeed. Incidents like this do a lot to lesson the support we can draw from them and really play into the hands of the insurgents. If these allegations are true, these marines will be partially responsible for the deaths of US soldiers and will have helped to make an already hard task that much harder.It won't matter to a lot of Iraqis who are on the fence that if true this is an isolated incident and that if true these troops don't represent our values. A few bad apples really can spoil things.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

It won't matter to a lot of Iraqis who are on the fence that if true this is an isolated incident and that if true these troops don't represent our values. A few bad apples really can spoil things.

True enough; but it's also worth pointing out that those same fence-sitting Iraqis can see how this is being handled vs. how Hussein's regime would have handled it, and see the difference.