Killing civilians does harm the mission- somewhat. I'd also say that arguing we could have done it without any casualties is a pipe dream.

We need to stop tying the hands of our forces. The next step, and what is really harming the mission, is leading the voting populace to think we should not have the mission at all. Now that the anti-war crowd has convinced a majority on Iraq, the next logical step is to suggest pulling all troops out of Afghanistan as well. Advantage: OBL.

The effect of killing civilians is the main point of the post; it's a reasonable thing to include in the headline. Did the U.S. military try to minimize collateral damage? Ya betcha. Did they do enough? I'd argue not. Reliance on safe aerial strikes rather than more dangerous ground action radically increases the odds of civilian casualties.

Whether these dead are "innocents" in every sense of the word is really beside the point. Killing them harms the mission.

Has yellow journalism made a comeback? The title of the article could have stopped after the word �Taliban�like the original article did. But sadly, there had to be a reference to �civilians� killed.
Why wasn�t this article titled �US Airstrike kills dozens of Taliban and Sympathizers� (or �Supporters� or �Friends�)?

Yeah, James, you surely are a Taliban sympathizer since the original wire story had the headline, "19 Killed in New Violence in Afghanistan" and you added the yellow-bellied "civilians" bit!

Are you going soft on us?

Any civilian casualty is a tragedy. The difference is that we take extraordinary measures to avoid them, with an enemy that shields itself with civilians, and operates among civilians. The enemy takes extraordinary measures to cause civilian casualties.