Killing innocent civilians

Here's something we can all agree on; killing innocent civilians is bad.

I'm brought to this observation by something I read today about casualties in NATO's war on Libya.

There has been a fair amount of hoo-ha about those 72 civilians who died as a result of NATO's ten thousand plus bombing sorties, a figure that totally beggars credulity to begin with.

What I read today was about casualties, not just civilian casualties, and the numbers are in the tens of thousands.

We can all empathize with those civilians.

But why is it that you can dress half a dozen teenagers in military uniforms, put them in a WW II era tank, destroy the lot with a laser-guided missile, and walk away congratulating yourself on how hard you're working on minimizing civilian casualties?

Those scared teenagers are people too.