Quote:
Originally Posted by Dowly
I don't know, the more I watch it the more I get the idea that civilian population means close to nothing as long as the target is destroyed. The full version shows the other engagement against a building where they saw bunch of gunmen walk into. As they fire the Hellfire, there's clearly a guy walking by the building who seemed to me be just a civilian passing it on his way somewhere *KABOOM*, he dead.  (At around 34min to the full vid)
Now, I know there will always be civilian casualties in a war, but it would've taken less than a minute for the POSSIBLE civvy to get clear before shooting. |
I've watched other vid where they don't engage, and miss the guys because of passers by, too. Might depend on the locale, targets, possible friendlies in area, all sorts of stuff we don't know. Or maybe just who is on the other end of the radio giving permission.
Regardless, it's still far better than, say, carpet bombing (WW2 solution). In ww2, US ground forces would approach a german town, and they might have a captured german warn them not to fight. If a lone sniper—or a misguided kid given a rifle or RPG by the nazis—fired on them, they might very well call in divisional artillery and wreck the place.
FWIW, it's a good sign that people are actually concerned about non-combatant deaths in small numbers. Like all other casualties our tolerance for ANY (not just on "our side") has decreased to a great degree.