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Originally Posted by Skybird
The civilians have bad luck, and maybe should have left the combat area earlier when possible. Or if they willingly hide the enemy, then it would give them the message that they better dont, and are being seen as combatants without uniform, which makes them a valid target. Areas were this scenario also applies are the middle East, Africa.
Note that until today so-called collateral damage from aerial bombing is nothing more than the intentional acceptance of eventually killing civilians if they happen to be too close to the target. According headloines from Iraq and Afghanistan have been in the news at least once per month if not per week during the past years.
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We had that problem when Iraq attacked us and invaded. It wasn't necessarily that the civilians hadn't chosen to leave as much as it was they had nowhere safe to go. Constant missile barrages, bombings, and shelling from Iraqi artillery. After a while, you just learn to adapt to it, you know? You know what to do and when to do it. The civilians were no different when Saddam shelled out cities.
Now Basra was a different case. If you were an innocent and were still there, you were shot. Pure and simple. You were warned, it was time to leave, and now we were going into the breach. For the conditions during the war and Basra, you could have been an Iraqi militant, and we didn't take chances. We played it safe, but we lost many, many good soldiers during that time.