Quote from: pow wow on May 06, 2011, 00:58:39

Are my fellow Canadians targeting innocent civilians in Afghanistan? Are the Americans targeting innocent civilians, are you Brits? No, how foolish and shame on anyone who might suggest it.  Do the innocent suffer and die because of wars that have to be fought? Unfortuately that's the reality and horror of war.

I think that the the Americans have targeted innocent civilians.  Wedding parties and residential areas have been hit, many cruise missile attacks on 'enemy targets' will have killed innocent people who just happened to be there. OK they say that these were 'inevitable' mistakes and that in many cases there will have been non-innocent parties killed in the same offensive, but the sheer number of innocent people who have died shows a callous disregard for these people's lives.  Had these people been American citizens living in New York or Washington their lives would have been much more precious.  From the perspective of those who flew aircraft into buildings in the US, they were targetting the political structures in the US, hitting back at the capitalist system which has done much evil around the world.  As far as those who flew the aircraft were concerned, the civilians killed in the Twin Towers were merely the 'inevitable' casualties of such an offensive.

This is the problem with the belief that the end justifies the means - a belief held by both sides.  Often the end offers far less good than the harm done by the means to achieve it.   Is the world a safer or better place because so many have been killed? Does America have fewer enemies now than it did before so many innocent people were blown to bits, burned, blinded, maimed or bereaved?

Maybe it would help if we called the victims of 11th September 'collateral damage'.  It seems to help when thinking of deaths in the East?