People becoming touchy about criticism of their military is a worldwide phenomenon. I think the military of every country should be saluted for putting their lives on the front lines but people, particularly in asian countries, tend to put their armies on a very high pedestal that should be never subject to any sort of criticism and anyone who dares to do so is seen along the lines of a traitor to the country's cause. People should realise that there are bad apples in every profession like police, doctors, engineers, etc., and the military is no exception to that rule.
If anything, some young men tend to get desensitised with all the trauma they constantly see and when that happens, particularly when the army is in vicinity of a civilian population, the position of power almost always gets misused by a few and human rights violations happen. We saw horrifying glimpses of that in some of the exposes through the wikileaks cables. Finally those soldiers end up with PTSD when they return to the normal world, which is very common among those soldiers involved in the middle east. Everyone loves his or her army like his own mother but the fact is, every military in the world has done shady things in the past and not a single army in the world is perfect without skeletons in its closet.
This is of course not to insinuate that entire military should be blamed but the fact is, if you have studied every event in the past when the military is in contact with civilians, the position of power and privilege almost always ends up getting misused, sometimes in gross manner and we have seen examples of that all over the world. People tend to sanctify certain professions/work - farmers because they produce food, doctors because they save lives, etc., and military gets the highest privilege among that. A society functions well when people in every profession work to their optimal ability and professionalism, and military obviously is the bravest among all those professions because they actually put their lives at stake. But at the same time when they get saluted for their courage, which tends to happen in every country, talking about the violations in behaviour becomes a taboo subject invoking brands and labels of "treachery", "anti nationalism", etc., which shouldn't happen imo. The point is there are bad apples in every profession and while the entire profession shouldn't get blamed for the bad apples, it is however very important to identify and address the bad apples first instead of ignoring them and simply thinking none such exist. There, I said it.
