<Would I have been justified in killing him, and his buffalo? If that's what had happened, would his family, now deprived of husband and father, a living and wealth, been justified in calling that immoral? What would you have done?

Nope, the military needs to know that at which it was shooting. And Who you kill is as important as That you kill.



A tough call indeed, and in the abstract, no one would argue with your last sentence.

Kill an innocent farmer? Or let him go, and maybe have him come by that night and toss a grenade into your camp? When the soldiers look exactly like the civilians, it's a real bitch. Wouldn't want to have to make a decision like that for all the tea in China, and I'm sure the pilots flying over Afghanistan aren't tickled pink about this sort of thing either.

I do not have enough evidence to either convict those pilots or to exonerate them, and neither does anyone else who has been criticizing them. I do dislike them being portrayed by knee-jerk types as heartless murderers, and respond accordingly.