Military deception is as old as warfare. Inadvertently placing civilians in danger due to combat exigencies is also an unhappy circumstance of long standing. So too is deliberate use of civilians as shields an ancient practice -- but they are three very different things.

Lawyers and wordsmiths may parse the three to their hearts content to get accord -- because that's what lawyers and wordsmiths do. Fortunately, most of us can safely ignore both.

I know of no western nation or armed force that allows, much less espouses the use of civilians as shields. If anyone here knows of one that does, I'd like to hear about it -- and I am NOT talking about aberrations where some Commander locally gets or got stupid.

Anyone who conflates the three very different things to make a political point simply isn't thinking well.