Let's Not Argue and Bicker About Who Bombed Who...

I suspect the wingnut crowd will find a way to blame the hostages themselves: (from Cursor)

HUSAYBA, Iraq, Nov. 9-The American military command said today that some residents had been killed and wounded during heavy fighting here, the first such acknowledgement of civilian casualties since the Marines moved into this town last Saturday to try to choke off the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.

A Marine statement said that according to a witness, rebels broke into a family's home, killed two of its occupants and locked the survivors in a room. The insurgents then used the house to launch attacks on advancing American and Iraqi troops, the Marines said. Unaware that civilians were in the house, the statement continued, Marine aircraft bombed it on Monday, reducing it to rubble.

The American military command has repeatedly asserted that it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties by weighing intelligence and following strict protocols, and says its bombs are capable of near-pinpoint precision.

But civilian casualties, particularly if the numbers grow as residents continue to sift through the debris of leveled buildings, could dilute American efforts to win the people's trust and to undercut the insurgency's influence.

A spokesman for the Second Marine Division, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, said in a statement that the Marines and the Iraqi forces working with them here were unclear "why insurgents used this particular house, which was occupied, when there were so many homes in the area that were abandoned."

My guess, Capt. Pool, is they did so because holding hostages generally gives the other side pause, as they consider the moral implications of possibly killing innocent people. In Iraq, there are further strategic considerations--winning hearts and minds, overcoming natural tendencies to not trust outsiders, etc., etc. At best, it's a constant uphill climb--and I'll bet the forces involved in this case understand both the broad and narrow implications of an instance like this.

With the wingnut crowd, however, it's doubtful they have the first clue. My own guess is that they're as likely as not to think the insurgents merely speak heavily accented English, and, deep down, are lily-livered, swarthy types--angry that they'll never own an expensive condo in South Beach. They're also likely to believe that any dead Iraqi was guilty of SOMETHING...so they'll blame the hostages themselves, perhaps for the crime of having been born in the wrong place at the wrong time or WHAETEVER.

That is, if the 'nuts think about Iraqi civilians--the ones they were so keen on liberating--at all anymore.