Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
[...]. You may be accidentally targeted by an adrenaline-soaked combatant who expects to see an enemy and decides that you are what he expects to see (the degree to which expectation governs perception has to be experienced to be appreciated). You may simply be standing in the same space where a projectile happens to be passing. It's not a safe environment, and being a journalist is no protection at all. Maybe it should be in theory, but in reality it's not.

From the perspective of a civilian who's been around a little bit of it: anyone who thinks you can send young men into combat and get politically correct dialogue, accurate and dispassionate interpretation of observed circumstances, and calm, rational, effective decision making all the time is living in the land of fantasy. War is hell; that hasn't changed and I don't expect that it will. We may feel it necessary to punish those who remind us that war is hell and who fail to conform to the illusion of a precise, clean, surgical war in which every action can stand up to hindsight... but there's probably just a bit of hypocrisy in that need.
Even if the two journalists had been enemy combatants with RPGīs, they were surrounded by unarmed people. And you canīt kill those. If you do, you are feasible to be charged according to the Laws of War. And thatīs exactly what itīs happening. If there were "2 enemy combatants with RPGs, lawful or unlawful", the apache killed around 12 or 15 unarmed.

I understand your position, but, like it or not, we can all kick and cry all we want, but you wonīt convince a court. the law is written in cold, clean letters. Itīs the game we play now, we have to understand it prior of our deployments.

"War is hell" is a poor defense.