Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Great speech, but, not true. At least according to the study referenced, and according to common sense.

The reason you cited is political, Taliban noble resistance and all of that. These are murders. Murders are personal. You were a DA. You know that. People have things that they resent and those build up until they decide they have been dissed enough then they murder. There may be some merging there, resentment at the latest air strike gone awry or last night's raid that killed the wrong people (again) but those are still things that get to the murderer on a personal level. Not many commit a deeply personal act like murder because they don't like the way the constitution is written.

But all that doesn't really matter too much. The murders are happening. Do you think Taliban & Co can use this pattern or exacerbate it and direct it?
What is "murder" in an insurgency?

Is it murder when we shoot a kid off his motorcycle for failing to slow down when we flash a light at him?

Is it murder when a head of household rushes to see who is invading his home with an old Russian single-shot shotgun in hand, only to be cut in half by the lead man of a team looking for some HVT?

Is it murder when an IED blows up non-combatants of any ilk?

Comfortable civilian peacetime constructs of law and justice do not readily apply. To write off even most of these Green on Blue events as murders of individual and personal purpose and intent is, IMO, naive at best, and intentionally disingenuous at worst.

They should be considered as yet another powerful metric of the inappropriate nature of our actions and the unlikelihood that current approaches and polices can produce the results we hope for.