I hate hearing about American troop deaths.  I feel sad for the Captain and First Sergeant who died.  Those are experienced and high-ranking people.  I don't feel as sympathetic for the civilians who died.  I believe strongly that if you're going to fight a war, you fight it hard and collateral damage is expected.  We won WWII by leveling Germany and nuking Japan.  You can't try to isolate the bad guys and kill only them.  It doesn't work that way.  Killing civilians may seem harsh but it ends wars.  When you just try to fight the insurgents or guerillas, wars don't get won.  They just keep going.  And that doesn't accomplish anything but more death.

The fact that civilians have to be hurt in the process of trying to get rid of the Taliban is mind boggling. Surely there can be better intelligence found that can fix this and honestly the fact that there is not makes me feel like we are not doing it right. We need to find ways to minimize the risk these civilians take by being in the crossfire.

This article is about a mission where American military were helping to train Afghan military targeting Taliban leaders. In the attack that was instructed by the American troops, Afghan civilians were killed. It was obviously not something that anyone wanted to happen, but when fighting erupted, innocent people were killed.

I just read an article about civilian deaths in Afghanistan. There was an incredible amount of focus on the two American soldiers who happened to be blown to smithereens and not the Afghani civilians, but what can you do? I suppose American people are much more interested in their boys fighting an endless war and not the innocent people caught in the crossfire.