You’re an officer in command of 30 men, trapped behind enemy lines. You have a prisoner that can lead you and your men to safety. But he won’t. Do you value the prisoner’s life more than the lives of the 30 men in your charge, or do you ensure their safety. From “Finding Forrester,” it ain’t a soup question.

[update]

WASHINGTON — In a survey of U.S. troops in combat in Iraq, less than half of Marines and a little more than half of Army soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.

More than 40 percent support the idea of torture in some cases, and 10 percent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, the Pentagon said Friday in what it called its first ethics study of troops at the war front. Units exposed to the most combat were chosen for the study, officials said.

“It is disappointing,” said analyst John Pike of the Globalsecurity.org think tank. “But anybody who is surprised by it doesn’t understand war. … This is about combat stress.”

The military has seen a number of high-profile incidents of alleged abuse in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the killings of 24 civilians by Marines, the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl and the slaying of her family and the sexual humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

These are not western values, and they have become the enemy of western society.

What makes an individual who is willing to embrace and put into practice the human rights abuses of the enemy any different from the enemy?