It makes it a lot easier to cover up present war crimes if past war crimes are systemically erased. From James Bovard at fff.org:
Media coverage of the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War mostly portrayed the war as a blunder. There were systematic war crimes that have largely vanished into the memory hole, but permitting government officials to vaporize their victims paves the way to new atrocities.
On the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, former First Lady Barbara Bush announced: “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it’s gonna happen? It’s not relevant, so why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
The Pentagon quickly institutionalized the Barbara Bush rule. Early in the Iraq war, Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks, asked about tracking civilian casualties, replied, “It just is not worth trying to characterize by numbers. And, frankly, if we are going to be honorable about our warfare, we are not out there trying to count up bodies.”
