Friday, September 19, 2008

Is it ever justified to kill civilians?

Historically, the civilians have been the victims of military raids. The First and the Second World Wars were events in which millions of civilians died due to indiscriminate raids on cities.

Despite the international conventions to protect civilians, there are many military operations that can’t be halted because of the civilians in the conflict zones.

But there is no justification to deliberately kill civilians as they shouldn’t in any way be the principal target of an armed operation. However there is no guarantee that in a massive operation they can all be protected, especially when it involves heavy weapons or air raids.

The killing of civilians is another price for wars, whose aim is to hit the targets and to destroy the enemy. After the fact, there is regret and compensation of the relative of the victims. Which means that there is no justification to kill civilians whose lives are gratuitously lost due to errors or deliberate targeting.

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