The usual suspects were up in arms recently when Israel (appropriately) killed terrorist leader Salah Shehade. The action was roundly criticized because Shehade happened to be staying in Gaza among civilians and the same attack that killed Shehade also killed several children.
Of course under the rules of war, it is Shehade who is responsible for those deaths since he choose to cowardly and illegally conceal himself among a civilian population while being an enemy combatant. But, of course, this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so the tragic death of civilians killed as a side effect of a legimater military action will always trump the hundreds of civilians that Shehade intentionally targeted (he was responsible, among other things, for a suicide bomb attack on a Sbarro’s).
The odd thing was that the United States also deigned to criticize the attack as “heavy handed”? Huh? Alan Caruba notes,
The U.S. called the action “heavy-handed.” An odd rebuke from a nation that killed more than 600 and wounded thousands of civilians during its pursuit of Noriega in Panama. This from a nation that bombed a neighborhood in Somalia, killing more than a thousand civilians, after it lost fifteen soldiers. When we invaded Afghanistan, the “collateral damage,” i.e., civilians, was simply the cost of war. However, if Israel, in its effort to defend itself, kills the leader of Hamas Al-Qassam Brigade, the whole world joins in the condemnation of the action.
Since he doesn’t seem to read much, maybe somebody should screen Blackhawk Down for Bush.