Is the average American soldier not able to adapt to the locals way of thinking?
Yeah, they adapted, they learned when shot at, shoot back, and shoot to win.
Have yet to hear though of American troops using a crowd to cower in while firing, I guess they haven't mastered the art of using women and children as shields. It is really a crime against humanity that cowards would do that, knowing it will cause a deadly response.
I cannot explain why there may have been an attempt to take down an "Islamic" banner, but often these "news" reports leave out some information that might help clear up confusion. Maybe it was a pro-saddam banner, maybe it urged Jihad, something along those lines. I don't know. I am leaning towards giving the troops the benefit of the doubt that they had somebody tell then what it said and then decided it was inappropriate and needed to be removed.
Of course, there will be journalists who wouldn't consider for a minute extending the benefit of a doubt, but those people have probably never been actually in a firefight or had a rocket shot at them, nor had to treat horrible wounds of close friends and comrades.
So, lets wait, let more details come out before we jump to judgement.
Dago
