Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post

In Syria today I have m' doubts that both aircraft and helicopters can readily distinguish between non-combatants and rebels. Aircraft bombing etc in an urban area is unlikely to be accurate in an urban setting; although to be fair we have seen very little reporting of this happening.
That is the problem. It goes back to Russia and China's opposition to intervention based on sovereignty. If you are willing to intervene based on human rights violations in a sovereign nation then China and Russia might be in trouble.

Same goes for Aircraft. If you argue that military aircraft cannot be used to strike military targets where there might be collateral civilian deaths, you would have to deny any country the use of them in all but a very limited instances. Not the kind of precedence anyone wants to set.