Terrorism as "collateral damages"

How hard did you look?

3 second google search

Who is the US missile aiming for otherwise? What is their target in Iraq? Other than a "residential area"?

 

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No, no, I've seen your evidence before. But it's all speculation: what kind of explosives? Who fired first at the checkpoint, and why? The link you cited is inutterably wrong here:

No, no, and again, no. I don't think it's at all uncommon for special forces types to use either indigenous garb or even weaponry; else, it becomes rather hard to sting terrorists who have made the tiniest attempt to look out the window and see what everyone's wearing this season.

The question is not "how much time evil Geoff did you spend looking on the internetsphere for pages on this?", but rather "how much time Sam did you spend in the thinky-place, wondering about the reasons special operations types might be wearing Arab garb, before you went to the reductio ad silly "they must have been on a sekrit operation to get Arabs blamed for stuff?" Honestly, do you expect them to wear their red berets too? The SAS wears native gear all the time. Seriously, now. You might have spent, say, half of your three seconds checking out the source of your article. It's bound by massive assumption and an extraordinary amount of hype. What if? What if? What if? is its central point.

 

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I like this guy's answer to the question. Let's just add something to it. Who has primary responsibility to defend civilians? Is it the army fighting on their behalf, or the army fighting against that army? If Taliban fighters don't want civilians killed, all they have to do is relocate their military resources to unpopulated areas. Problem solved.

If the defending army doesn't make at least a good faith effort to protect its civilians, then the attacking army should have absolute perfect zero responsibility to do so. Where it gets complicated is when the civilians who are threatened are not affiliated at all with the soldiers who are being targeted.


Another approach I see as being fair would be to define civilians in a combat zone as "conscripts" (or willing participants in some cases, because not all people who become "human shields" do so unwillingly.) If they're not being allowed to leave, then how is that any different from a person being unwillingly inducted into the military by way of conscription and forced to behave as a soldier? The fault still lies with the group who has conscripted them, not with the opposing army.

 

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The rise of death squad operations carried out by forces allied or associated with the US in Iraq is (and was, at the time) common knowledge. You don't send Negroponte into a theater unless you're looking to manage a death squad or two - and that management, at least, will be at some level in the hands of American or Brit employees, military or mercenary.

 

And is that the case in this case? Which hit squads are these?