fwiw i agree with you that the current situation is much worse than in the past, given all the horror's being done in the open without any nod toward reason, multilateralism, or public consent
I don't have rose-tinted glasses with regard to US actions in the past, especially in OEF/OIF. So many instances of horror in Vietnam, WW2, and so on.
But all of those things are the awful things that happen during war even with a military, political, and legal apparatus that tries to mitigate it.
We are now dealing with a regime that claims and will make no such efforts. The only reason the Iran war hasn't so far yielded the same horrors is because so far we haven't attempted to occupy Iran.
If we do, I absolutely promise you that a military populated by people who know they can be court martialed, jailed, or even executed for crimes against the local population will be significantly better behaved (even if imperfectly, per your article) than one that is told – from the very top – that they will be accountable for nothing except maximal brutality and lethality.
take a look at this though, in the interest of examining past US actions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...