Thursday, September 30, 2010

A Basic Misunderstanding of Responsibility

My impression is that these Australian soldiers are wrongly accused of war crimes.

It can be difficult to comprehend, but when an enemy fights behind civilian shields, if our side shoots the civilians in the process of killing the enemy, responsibility for the civilian deaths lies with the enemy and not our troops.

It is true that we often don't take the shot to spare the civilians, but that doesn't change the responsibility.