Are you kidding me?
White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked at today's press briefing, in the context of the Boston bombings, whether U.S. bombings in Afghanistan last month that killed civilians were "terrorism." Carney gave a long answer, but never says "no."
Unless you want to argue that we deliberately tried to kill those civilians, the answer is clearly and obviously a "no, it is not terrorism." The fact that we go to great lengths to identify targets--despite enemy tactics of hugging civilians around them and dressing like civilians to complicate our targeting--should make it easy to answer that journalist's stupid freaking question with a firm "no." We can and do make mistakes. That is not a crime under the rules of war. That is way different than a deliberate policy of killing civilians.
Or does that journalist want to argue that whatever dirt bag detonated those bombs at the Boston Marathon was aiming for a military target and civilians unfortunately got in the way?
If Carney could work up a little outrage at being asked a question like that about the integrity of American forces, that would be nice, too. But I'm not naively optimistic.
