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We can guess that the unacceptable conduct of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib resulted in part from the dangerous state of affairs on the ground in a theater of war.

Bad as was being shot by some of our own troops in the battle of the Wilderness, - that was an honest mistake, one of the accidents of war, - being shot at, since the war, by many officers, was worse.

Could anything justify the extermination of civilians on such a scale?

I think it is tragic that a situation should arise where civilians on any side are killed. But it is almost a cliche to say that it is virtually unavoidable and this isn't unique to us alone.

I couldn't stand the idea of bloodshed, casualties.

That's the thing about the script, is that how these people were affected by their decision, and how it could ultimately kill them, and I mean literally.

There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.

One-third of our people were dangerously ill, getting worse hourly, and we felt sure of meeting the same fate, with death as our only prospect, which in such a country was much worse yet.

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.