Incidentally, the latest issue of The Nation has a booj review on the "Heart of Darkness" theme - European attrocities in colonial wars. An interesting point was not that such attrocities were committed (for war attrocities as old as humankind), but the way how they were justified - as exterminating "subhuman" species. That is much different from, say, Far Eastern warrior codes that extolled the virtues of the enemy (for added splendor if he was defeated, lesser shame is he was victorious).
This villification of a weaker enemy seems to be the coverup for utmost cowardice - a tradition to which the US Army is a proud heir (at least since Wounded Knee).
wojtek