Dear SPQR, or might I say Boaz, or Polycarp, or AlGoreisrich?

You said “Neither you or the Taliban has produced any credible evidence that the US is deliberately targeting non-combatants in the Afghanistan conflict.”

They bombed a funeral!, a bloody funeral! No amount of your Youtube clips showing men in burkas can excuse that.

This was a premeditated targeting of civilians.

The question had to be asked, 'do we wait and see if we can target our suspect after leaving the gathering our should we attack now even though non-combatants are part of the target?' They went with the second option. In international law that is deemed targeting civilians, and most humane people would and should condemn them for it.

In 1999, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia rejected the defendant, Stanislav Galic's claims that the presence of military targets within a civilian center essentially justifies an indiscriminate attack. The Court ruled authoritatively that it is unlawful to "target" military objectives within a civilian area when the attacker could reasonably "expect excessive civilian causalities to result from the attack." Citing a specific example, The Court ruled that

"Although the number of soldiers present at the game was significant, an attack on a crowd of approximately 200 people, including numerous children would clearly be expected to cause incidental loss of life and injuries to civilians excessive in relation to the direct and concrete military advantage anticipated."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16539

The Ruling from the Trial Chamber reads in part

"...indiscriminate attacks, that is to say, attacks which strike civilians or civilian objects and military objectives without distinction, may qualify as direct attacks against civilians. It notes that indiscriminate attacks are expressly prohibited by Additional Protocol I. This prohibition reflects a well-established rule of customary law applicable in all armed conflicts."

You will need to tell me why the CIA's attack wasn't a war crime?

Thinker 2, know I like and respect you, BUT HOLD YOURSELF accountable for your posts.
In this thread, you threw the rubbish about Americas bombing two Japanese city's around.
Then admitted you knew little about the circumstances. you still know nothing about that truth.
csteele, feel free to hug your self and wail, at my insistence on reality.
At my under standing war is awful, but if fighting one winning is best.
Claim like a child chanting I want that,I am hate or fear driven, ignore my question after demanding an answer from me.
csteele another question, are you aware missiles far more awful than any drone are to be used soon, are the fashion in fact? the impending stoning to death of a woman.
PS are you French?
Learn understand, think deeply,those who think differently than you may be right or wrong,and csteele that applies to you too.
Only a fool could truly think they are always right.

CSteele

/// They bombed a funeral!, a bloody funeral! No amount of your Youtube clips showing men in burkas can excuse that ///

On the contrary CSteele, my Youtube clips do just that , because they illustrate well that things are not as they are presented:
--Burka clad “women” may be Taliban men
--An “ambulance” may be a weapons transport
--A “funeral” may be militants hiding/escaping

It is too, too easy ---in the comfort of ones entertainment room, with no threat to ones own life -- to get all sanctimonious, but it aint realistic.

Which may be why –and this may have escaped your notice, or, you may be aware of it and be employing a Taliban like deception – the US is not party to the ICC.And with rulings like the one you illustrate ---it has “bloody” good reason not to be.That ruling would make impossible to fight an adversary like the Taliban or Hezbollah or Hamas who systematically entrench themselves with civilians with the deliberate intent of creating civilian causalities.

Please review what this Hamas leader is saying : Hamas uses civilians as shields –it wants casualties http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtg1pjnEW2c&feature=related

Of course you try and limit causalities.--but in a conflict where the enemy refuses to wear a uniform and hides under women’s skirts or uses children to deliver bombs, it is unrealistic to expect there wont be errors.



Thinker2
/// I too along with csteele, Poirot and Co,
question our own standards and values ///

If you and CSteele and Poirot were a company, chances are your creditors would have petitioned to place the group into receivership , a long, long time ago . Since all you can do is talk about standards--which if you yourselves were placed in the firing line – you would not have a hope in hell of fulfilling.

Dear Belly,

Please don't claim I haven't answered your question when I clearly have. Further I replied straight away and with a reasonable explanation for the answer given.

Dear SPQR/AGIR,

You wrote "to fight an adversary like the Taliban or Hezbollah or Hamas who systematically entrench themselves with civilians".

To quote from Reuters;

If you were on the U.S-led coalition base in Bagram in Afghanistan soon after the 2001 invasion, you couldn’t help noticing soldiers with long, Taliban-style beards and dressed in light brown shalwar kamaeez down to the sandals.

http://blogs.reuters.com/afghanistan/2009/11/08/growing-beards-to-tame-the-afghan-insurgency/

Northern Alliance, Afghanistan born fighters, some appear not to remember they fought with America.
We have only silence in relation to stoning to death of women.
We hark back constantly to deaths funereal, but is the information true.
We know,even the anti Americans know lies are currency,Even a holly book tells them to lie to us.
It has been good thread, it however is the opinion of three posters, even within the ranks of the very left very anti American left it is unconvincing tripe.
Boazy are you at it again?
Be proud of whatever name you use stand on one .