Details are sketchy in this incident -- but it illustrates teh difference between the US and the terrorists quite nicely.

The U.S. military said Monday that it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq south of Baghdad.

The civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the Iraqi capital, U.S. Navy Lt. Patrick Evans told The Associated Press. Three more civilians were wounded and taken to U.S. military hospitals nearby, he said.

The incident and the events surrounding it are under investigation, Evans said.

The killings occurred as U.S. forces pursued suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants in the area. Shortly after the incident, American officers met with a Muslim sheik representing citizens in the area, he said.

"We offer our condolences to the families of those who were killed in this incident, and we mourn the loss of innocent civilian life," Evans said in a statement e-mailed to the AP.

Saturday's strike was the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months.

Let's look at those differences.

1) Civilian casualties caused by the US are accidental; those caused by the terrorists are intentional.

2) The US apologizes for such casualties; the terrorists proclaim them as a sign of their success.

3) The US treats the wounded; the terrorists leave them to die as a part of their terror campaign.

4) The US investigates such casualties with an eye towards avoiding them; the terrorists seek to maximize them.

It will, of course, be important to discover exactly what happened and how this tragedy occurred. And it will be educational to see how the "moral equivalence" crowd responds.

Posted by: Greg at 10:51 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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