[runarberg]

This is true until it isn’t. Read up on the torture following the Invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. The accountability was really minimal, and a lot of people guilty of the horrible crime of torturing got away scot-free.

See also quite a few murdering of civilians conducted by private military contractors such as Blackwater (now Constellis; in particular the Nisour Square massacre). Some were charged for the crime they committed (or for a lesser crime of manslaughter) but were later pardoned.

Since this is HN it is also obligatory to mention Chelsea Manning who leaked many crimes committed by the military (in particular the murdering of the journalists Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen from an attack helicopter). She was the only person convicted for that incident. Nobody was charged with the murder of the journalists. (But they did [finally] charge Julian Assange for helping Chelsea Manning reveal these crimes to the public).