First of all, thank you for responding without all of the complements that I have received from other posters. Although the complements really are in reality priceless.
I had to cut your post due to space.
You lay out two alternatives:
But what we have here is a third option: individual people’s evil behaviour in the process of representing the said coalition.
Under this third option we have two sub-conditions
- with the knowledge and approval of the coalition
- without the knowledge and approval of the coalition
And actually these are two poles of a scale. You might have the coalition explicitely authorizing such behavior, implicitely authorizing such behavior, turning a blind eye to such behavior, covering up such behavior when it occurs, etc.
One other thing. We will assume that said coalition in essence is good coalition and has laws against such behavior.
Now if you are a victim of this evil behavior by one individual in the process of representing the said coalition, it does not matter if this individual was a high-level leader, a low-level peon, with the approval of the coalition or without the approval of the coalition. Just because your perpetrator did it in the name of the coalition is enough for you as a victim to ascribe guilt to said coalition.
Our legal system operates under these rules. If I am a victim of wrongful behavior by one member of the coalition acting on behalf of the coalition, I can suit the coalition for damages. And get awarded big bucks. And that is happening with the assorted suits victims of the priest sex abuse scandals are bringing against the Catholic Church (not to mention the suits against McDonalds for its operatives spilling coffee).
To cite another example, the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Now as far as we know this was done solely by low-level operatives in the US Army. Now there may or may not be some complicitness further up the food chain, but I don’t know.
But, this torture was done by representatives of the United States in the armed forces acting on behalf of the United States. So in this context, it is perfectly legitimate to say that the United States tortured Iraqi prisoners at Abu Grhaib.