I think that this has more to do with the perceived nature of the conflict, which (certainly in the UK) paints it as the UK forces supporting a legitimate government against an illegal (criminal) insurgency. We therefore see a migration away from military terms to judicial and criminal terms.
For the UK the dead are repatriated back to the UK, a coroner's inquest is held and invariably the verdict is reached (for KIA) 'unlawfully killed'. This opens a pandora's box of issues.
- Coroners' Inquests take a very narrow view of culpability and protection yet their verdicts have ramifications in law and politics.
- Unlawfully killed by our laws, but to what extent do our laws apply in operational theatres (an issue currently the subject of several legal cases)?
- The 'Wootten Basset' effect, the language used to describe casualties and other factors make me wonder whether as a society we are turning our armed forces from a military, expected to fight and die, to a quasi-police organisation, expected to go on operations but not to take casusalties as the norm.
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