So Andrew Exum says...
The reason we do not drop compounds in Afghanistan has more to do with operational considerations than it does with some high-minded moral code or the laws of land warfare. Opponents of COIN doctrine who claim the U.S. Army has gone "soft" would best remember that. If dropping compounds helped us to advance the ball down the field in terms of mission success, we might be more tolerant of civilian casualties and "collateral damage." But the evidence suggests that killing civilians and destroying their property actually harms the mission more than it helps.
Any student of Clausewitz (about the best COIN advice there is) will tell you that the problems associated with killing civilians are the political consequences of such actions. It's little to do with operational conduct, other than why would you kill people you don't need to kill?

The negative consequence maybe the loss of political support within the target population. That is only negative if their support is integral to your strategy. The population can only share your political aim. They can't share your military aim. So talking about "operational considerations" in that context is simplistic and possibly misleading.

Dropping the right compounds and killing the right people, will generally benefit your operational considerations! It's Core functions! It's how you defeat any enemy in any environment.

Now, I am not A COIN OPPONENTS I'm an opponent of the "Nouveau COIN" which somehow wants to focus on tangential issues and to celebrate form over function., instead of the Elephant in the corner (carrying the AKM) - as far as I can tell "Nouveau COIN" is completely devoid of any reference to Core Functions.