COLLATERAL DAMAGES

The press has stepped up coverage of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Unfortunate as they are, it is the United States that struggles to avoid and is criticized more often for them. There is the usual double standard applied by the libs: the accidental deaths of civilians in air attacks using the most accurate weapons in history are placed on the same moral plane as suicide bombings and cutting off heads on the web. No comparison should be made, however, between the intent and practices of the armed forces involved in this conflict.
While there is a reasonable argument to be made for resuming the WW2 practice of bombing cities, I won't make it here and now. The idea that the civilian population should be brought to feel the full consequences of war, while tempting, is perhaps out of date. Current weapons systems do not require mass delivery to be effective. Considering the nature of our terrorist enemies, bombing on a massive scale is neither militarily nor politically rational. That is not to say there aren't a few cities that should face the same fate as Dresden, just not in this type of conflict or circumstance.
The two sides in Afghanistan clearly operate under different rules of engagement and conduct. While NATO and American forces operate under a strict code of military discipline and order, the Taliban are a rabble of savages locked in the seventh century. Allied forces that indiscriminately kill civilians are prosecuted, while the Taliban uses killing and intimidation of civilians a basic tenet of their twisted philosophy. Yet the media often treat them the same, wagging their fingers at allied forces and minimizing the horrific murders of women and children frequently perpetrated by the Taliban.
My advice to civilians in Afghanistan is this: don't allow terrorists in your communities. Doing so poses the double threat of terrorist violence and the violence that U.S. forces will surely inflict upon them. When NATO forces come hunting Taliban, be somewhere else.

JINGOCON