Innocent civilians killed in airstrike?

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials said fighter aircraft battling militants accidentally killed up to 27 Afghans walking to a wedding ceremony in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday, the second military attack in three days with reports of civilian deaths.

These reports require us to look at two aspects of the story. One is who reported the civilian deaths and their credibility. There are also reports of large numbers of jihadis killed as well. Since the definition of enemy country is where your enemies are, shouldn't reports from enemy territory be very suspect? The jihadis understand how the press tries and convicts the US based on any evidence, the more spurious the better. So after we whack a few dozen tangos, they start hollering "Women and babies killed while praying" They actually picked a theme that worked in Iraq, the wedding party. 'Cuz who can hate a wedding party, and you get the "horror" multiplier as well.

Now I will put on my cruel, heartless warmonger hat and talk about who actually qualifies as an innocent civilian. The death of any person not involved in hostilities is a tragedy and should be avoided when at all possible. Often when we have killed terrorists in both Iraq and Afghanistan, women and children have died as well. The press describes them as innocent civilians, I disconcur. When a terrorist retires after a long day of lobbing mortar rounds indiscriminately around the city, he heads home to his base camp, where his support company feeds him and tends to his needs. The terrorist uses his family in the same way an Army uses it's support forces and he puts them in play by doing so. We have absolutely no desire to kill his wife and children, but it is not our fault when he fires the mortar and runs to hide amongst them. He has done the equivalent of hiding in a hospital or mosque(which they often do as well).

Progressing to my even more cold-blooded hat it is reasonable to think of the wife as an active participant. I realize that she has absolutely no choice due to the prevailing culture, but once again we didn't make it that way, they did. If anyone should have common cause with us it ought to be the wives of the sharia-loving barbarians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And to take this reductio to it's absurdum, the left often descries that by killing terrorists we make more. It is an argument although not a good one. But if we kill the terrorist and his whole family don't we eliminate the "his sons will grow up to hate us" argument? And now given that the courts have seen fit to endow any captured terrorists with a whole panoply of rights, don't dead tangos make more sense than live ones?

Our operators must now consider whether capturing terrorists in an attempt to gain intel, is too dangerous if they can't provide probable cause to a lefty judge in San Francisco and the bad guy gets released. It might become all the vogue to just start ventilating them at long range with any manner of precision-strike weaponry. If I was planning missions it is a factor I would certainly consider.

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Innocent civilians killed in airstrike?

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials said fighter aircraft battling militants accidentally killed up to 27 Afghans walking to a wedding ceremony in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday, the second military attack in three days with reports of civilian deaths.

These reports require us to look at two aspects of the story. One is who reported the civilian deaths and their credibility. There are also reports of large numbers of jihadis killed as well. Since the definition of enemy country is where your enemies are, shouldn't reports from enemy territory be very suspect? The jihadis understand how the press tries and convicts the US based on any evidence, the more spurious the better. So after we whack a few dozen tangos, they start hollering "Women and babies killed while praying" They actually picked a theme that worked in Iraq, the wedding party. 'Cuz who can hate a wedding party, and you get the "horror" multiplier as well.

Now I will put on my cruel, heartless warmonger hat and talk about who actually qualifies as an innocent civilian. The death of any person not involved in hostilities is a tragedy and should be avoided when at all possible. Often when we have killed terrorists in both Iraq and Afghanistan, women and children have died as well. The press describes them as innocent civilians, I disconcur. When a terrorist retires after a long day of lobbing mortar rounds indiscriminately around the city, he heads home to his base camp, where his support company feeds him and tends to his needs. The terrorist uses his family in the same way an Army uses it's support forces and he puts them in play by doing so. We have absolutely no desire to kill his wife and children, but it is not our fault when he fires the mortar and runs to hide amongst them. He has done the equivalent of hiding in a hospital or mosque(which they often do as well).

Progressing to my even more cold-blooded hat it is reasonable to think of the wife as an active participant. I realize that she has absolutely no choice due to the prevailing culture, but once again we didn't make it that way, they did. If anyone should have common cause with us it ought to be the wives of the sharia-loving barbarians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And to take this reductio to it's absurdum, the left often descries that by killing terrorists we make more. It is an argument although not a good one. But if we kill the terrorist and his whole family don't we eliminate the "his sons will grow up to hate us" argument? And now given that the courts have seen fit to endow any captured terrorists with a whole panoply of rights, don't dead tangos make more sense than live ones?

Our operators must now consider whether capturing terrorists in an attempt to gain intel, is too dangerous if they can't provide probable cause to a lefty judge in San Francisco and the bad guy gets released. It might become all the vogue to just start ventilating them at long range with any manner of precision-strike weaponry. If I was planning missions it is a factor I would certainly consider.

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