You realize that's a coping mechanism, if a subconscious one, right? A soldier's job involves killing whomever they are ordered to kill, do you think it's psychologically healthy for them not to compartmentalize the act into something distinct from the full realization of what their actions ultimately mean? Even if in this particular case their actions cross the line of what's acceptable, coming down on them would have an extremely dangerous affect on morale, and publicly admitting to the incident would result in a bunch of halfwits screaming "OMG AL SOLIDERS IS MURDERS!", as was the case when it was leaked. Both war and politics are filthy fucking business, and a lot of people don't like to acknowledge that. Now, there are things that they're doing quite wrong, perhaps unsurprisingly these are the things they trumpet the loudest. I suppose it makes a twisted kind of sense, when you think about that critically: ineffectual bullshit like the TSA are both a smokescreen that makes US defense seem incompetent (lulling potential threats into a false sense of security), and are a convincing enough show to make most of the population believe that things all nice and safe, because they wouldn't be so radically inconvenienced and humiliated if it didn't work, after all! That it provides many unskilled jobs and buys extremely expensive, but ultimately useless high-tech gadgets is just a nice little bonus for the economy when it comes down to it (remember that spending doesn't exist in a vacuum, any money spent on americans and not on foreign countries is a good thing, though that's been taken to extremes by the very people who bitch and moan about government spending the most; they can't be bothered to actually help their own fucking people by providing healthcare, but they pour massive amounts into incompetent, wasteful private contractors)...
Now of course the actual leaking of that, and the other documents, was a crime, but I still feel sorry for the poor bastard they're court marshaling over it. He's just a dumbshit kid who thought he was doing the right thing, and he doesn't deserve the crucifixion that he will undoubtedly receive. Note that the publishing, and republishing of that information, however, was most certainly not illegal, for a myriad of reasons that have already been argued to death.