I agree with Ranger 94 to an extent but disagree that the Team was functioning in the LRS mode. Regardless, the action if a compromise or potential compromise occurred should've been part of mission planning and probably was. We do not know many things including the depth of that planning and the specific actions and the terrain and situation at the time during the mission; best laid plans and all that. Thus, I submit we cannot judge.

Obviously at first blush shooting civilians is not a good thing but situation dependent, we cannot say 'never.' Some missions may be too important and not be able to be rescheduled. In this case it would appear, and I agree with several, that the mission could be aborted (as it was) and rescheduled, so it was a bad idea if it was ever seriously considered. Was the shooting of the civilians ever seriously considered? We don't know really that, either.

I also submit that we cannot judge Murphy. Did he ask for a 'vote' (not a good thing) or did he simply solicit opinions about possible actions from the other more experienced Team members (a good thing). We don't know; we weren't there. We only have Luttrel's version and given that he apparently told the Murphys one thing for whatever reason and told another thing in the book his tale is at least mildly suspect to be after the fact-itis. Combat recall is dicey at best.

Much the same is perhaps true of Bravo Two Zero and 'Andy McNab.' There are others who dispute his version. Anyone who was not actually present in such operations is rarely going to get a clear unjaundiced view of what occurred. Thus, I'm inclined to believe judgmental calls on the rights and wrongs by all us bystanders (to include unit staff types involved but not in the field at the time and emphatically including higher echelon staffs) are probably going to miss many salient points, are generally unhelpful and should be avoided. YMMV.

Entropy who was peripherally involved says that there were many factors not made public (and I'm sure that's true) and that lessons were learned, absorbed and new TTP implemented as a result (and I'm equally sure that occurred) -- that's the important thing.