Sorry, but that's not an excuse and there are those that HAVE been in combat that judge this as wrong so are you going to tell them they can't judge because they disagree with you as well?
As far as news goes, when a thug on the street kills somebody it barely gets a blurb in the news if at all. However, a police officer does something wrong and it's all over the news. Why? Because people expect more out of our police officers than they do thugs. Exactly how people view the military. That's why this is news and the other was only mentioned slightly in the media.
The media makes it's money off of Scandals, Sex, and wars. So if you have a problem with coverage I suggest you take it up with them.
I have a problem with war, period.
I especially have a problem with occupying countries for more than a decade, and sending hundreds of thousands of troops into a warzone that will traumatize them and change them for life. My problem is with a government that is so cavaliar with the lives of our soldiers that they would put them into this situation when neither country is in now a position to pose a serious threat to our nation.
Once we have sent our soldiers into the belly of the beast, ordered them to kill and maim to do their duty, kept them in hostile zones for years on end, taught them to dehumanize those who are trying to kill them, I have a problem that a few photos with dead enemies turns the government and others into a hypocritical "OMG this is so terrible" blamefest without stopping to think that it is
war, filthy, dirty, bloody, stench of death
war that has forced these soldiers to become completely desensitized to the carnage around them in order to stay sane.
So yeah, I have a problem with it, and with clueless people shaking fingers at photos of death but not giving a single cogent thought as to how and why the dead people actually got dead in the first place. They got dead because the government went to
war with them, and sent soldiers to kill them.
If you don't have a problem with war, fine. I do. But I'm not going to judge soldiers for doing what they have been trained to do, which is kill people. And if I'm not going to judge soldiers for killing people, I'm sure as hell not going to judge them for taking pictures of war, as has been done in every war since the invention of the camera.