Thoughts on "Civilian Casualties"

CNN's Karl Penhaul reported seeing many civilian casualties at the main hospital in Tyre, Lebanon, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Israeli border.

--From a CNN online news report today

The above snippet involves the use of language as propaganda, the exposure of which is one of our chief missions here at HazZzMat. The sentence we've just cited is typical of this kind of reportage, whether from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere (except Israel, whose casualties, for some reason, are never characterized as "civilian").

Work with me here. A "civilian" casualty could be a grandmother. Or an innocent young boy. Or a tiny baby. But a "civilian" casualty could also be a Taliban or a Hezbollah terrorist. The Taliban, in particular, as have their counterparts in the Pakistani tribal regions, are particularly swift to label casualties in a recently-bombed rural village as "civilians." But are they, in the sense that we understand the word, which usually implies "innocent" civilians?

Many times, this term is used in misleading if not absolutely false ways. For, while a Taliban or Hezbollah terrorist regards himself as a warrior-soldier, he is not a warrior-soldier in the sense of the Geneva Convention. That is, he is not a warrior-soldier employed by any recognized government. Hence, while just as deadly as any legitimate warrior-soldier, the terrorist is, in a Western legal sense, a "civilian."

Thus, one must learn to suspect highly sentences like the one we cited above. The reporter could indeed be talking about women and children. But he could also be talking about a substantial number of long-bearded men in civilian garb who were blasted in the act of attempting to murder Israelis, directly or indirectly.

We see this intentional misuse at its most egregious in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where every village that's hit harbored only innocent "civilians." We later find out that most of the houses were expropriated by the terrorists and used by them to accumulate weaponry and hatch murderous plots. But in some ways, as we've just suggested, they could with some legitimacy, call themselves "civilians." In so doing, of course, should it be the Americans or the Israelis who kill these "citizens," it becomes easy and convenient, and definitely good propaganda, to accuse Americans and Israelis of murdering "innocent civilians."

Bottom line, you need to take this claim with a grain of salt. Nine times out of ten in the Middle East, "innocent civilian" casualties contain a large percentage of "civilian" terrorists. Their claim of innocence is bogus and misleading. And when accepted at face value by MSM leftie reporters, it becomes yet another tool in the terrorist arsenal, as these cynical murderers happily employ the useful idiots in the media to spread their malicious lies.

Always, ALWAYS be suspicious when the term "civilian" is used to describe casualties in the Middle East. Don't accept its use without demanding proof that the civilians are real civilians, not terrorists posing as "civilians."