The US prides itself on our humanitarian efforts with regard to global issues and war. However we don’t have a perfect rap sheet with civilian casualties. I think that it comes to a point where an army, air force, ect could never get much done if no civilian casualties were acceptable. Look at the current battles in the Middle East. There were several times where a group of militants and Taliban member were killed along with a few innocent bystanders. One time several months ago we bombed an area which had insurgents hiding. After the bombing we found that about 70 dangerous / nefarious individuals were killed while 2 innocent civilians died in the process. Is this acceptable? By what moral reasoning do you say yes or no?
To me it is acceptable so long as the military did not know that they were going to kill 2 people. If there was a possibility but not a knowledge that two innocents would die, I find that still acceptable. However if it was a case was that the military knew that they would kill at least a few innocents, I don’t know if I can agree that this would be acceptable. Grey areas are always difficult.
One way that people like to look at this is a life to life comparison. For example those 70 nefarious individuals who were killed likely would have taken the lives of at least 10 people before all of them died. Many of them also would have helped continue drug businesses and other horrible ventures. So the fact that they would have done so much evil and many would have died by their influence and hands, could justify the death of the two innocents during that attack. I am not sure that I subscribe to this argument but it is rather convincing. The only problem is when you start to place a value on each persons life.
