Civilian casualties inevitable

[Rumba]

In any major war civilian casualties are inevitable.

True.

If someone spouts that line at you in response to reports of civilian casualties in Iraq, hit 'em back with something like this.


In a conventional war between uniformed militaries, although civilian casualties are tragically going to happen, it's at least possible to identify who are the combatants on the other side.

In an asymmetrical war the combatants on the non-uniformed side dress just like the non-combatants. It's impossible to distinguish them, so the frequency of civilian casualties is greater, and there will be more incidents where the civilian casualties will be due to intentional targeting of noncombatants who couldn't be distinguished from combatants. Furthermore the need to take the fight to the largely civilian areas where the geurrillas blend in means there will be more opportunities for civilian casualties.


In a conventional war between uniformed militaries, the military objective is to defeat the other side's uniformed forces. This objective is purely military. Civilian casualties, though tragic, don't directly make this objective more difficult to acheive.

In an asymmetrical war between a uniformed modern military and geurrilla forces, the objective is more political. In particular, in Iraq, it's very much about "winning hearts and minds". Civilian casualties, by creating resentment in the populus, work directly against this objective, particularly when they are incidents of intentional targeting of indistnguishable non-combatants or when they take place in largely civilian areas where geurrillas have melted away.


This is one reason why large uniformed militaries are not very good at fighting a "winning hearts and minds" campaign against geurrillas. The very nature of the combat results in incidents of civilian casualties that work directly against the objective of winning hearts and minds.

Of course, you actually have to think about it for a couple of seconds to see this, which may mean explaining it to someone who thinks we're headed in the right direction in Iraq will be an uphill battle.

[flowomo]

1. you might want to repair that weird typo in your post title....

at first I thought this was maybe something from Don Corleone, and that you has misspelled Sicilian....

[SoCalDem]

2. or a typo of a fish species

:)

[Rumba]

3. Yeah, that was a silly typo. :) Cicilian -> Civilian

[SoCalDem]

5. You realize.. you are talking to the Queen of TYPOS..

I "invent" new words all the time.. Be careful of typos when you google.. ya never know what you're gonna get :)

[knowbody0]

4. in this war

25,000,000 civilians are the enemy

[noamnety]

6. I find it fascinating

The military is sending all men back into Fallujah because they say they can't tell insurgents from civilians. Yet once they are dead, the military can clearly identify them all as insurgents for their body counts.

Kind of like Salem. If we shoot you and you die, you were an insurgent.

[donhakman]

7. W is a civilian

?