ISIL has exploited our hyper-sensitivity to inflicting civilian casualties while we seek to kill ISIL forces by hugging civilians even more tightly:
In Syria and Iraq the Islamic terrorists are benefitting from pioneering work done by the Afghan Taliban to make it more difficult for Western air forces to use their smart bombs and superior sensors to find and cripple Islamic terrorists on the ground. American, Iraqi and other Arab leaders are complaining that the restrictive American ROE (Rules Of Engagement) are and how these rules severely limits the number of targets that can be hit. As a result ISIL can move around more freely despite the constant presence of coalition aircraft overhead.
In effect, ISIL has a rather effective air defense system that consists of our leadership, global media, and military lawyers.
It's bad enough for this type of war, but if casualty aversion extends to high intensity warfare, we will lose that fight.
