Frequent killing of civilians is inherent in the types of wars that the United States has waged in this century. Despite all the hype about precision weaponry, even its top-rated technologies are fallible. What's more, they operate in flawed—and sometimes highly dysfunctional—contexts. Whether launching attacks from distant positions or directly deployed, American forces are far removed from the societies they seek to affect. Key dynamics include scant knowledge of language, ignorance of cultures, and unawareness of such matters as manipulation due to local rivalries.
When U.S. officials say that civilian deaths are merely accidental outcomes of the war effort, they don't mention that such deaths are not only predictable—they're also virtually inevitable as results of policy priorities. Presumptions of acceptability are hot-wired into the war machine. The lives taken, injuries inflicted, traumas caused, environmental devastation wrought, social decimation imposed—all scarcely rank as even secondary importance to the power centers in Washington.
Norman Solomon, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, The New Press, New York, USA, 2023, pp. 53-54.
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