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I'm not entirely convinced. Death may be preferable to killing a civilian...

Perhaps that would be the way you felt, but if the civilian was shielding a guy who was killing your buddies and who has vowed to kill you and your country, and the only way to stop him is to cut through that shield, then what are you going to do? Let your buddies die? Let the enemy win? Or do what is necessary to save your buddies and prevail in the war?

Perhaps you should not be a soldier. Bomber pilots often kill as many "civilians" as they do bad guys. But collateral damage is often a necessary evil.

BTW when the Israelites were ordered by God to kill all the Amalekites, if you had been there would you have shirked your duty, or would you have followed orders? They did what was necessary under the circumstances. The fact that they disobeyed God and did not finish the job came back to haunt them.

I say in a war zone you shoot until the threat is neutralized. The Marines are not police and this war is not a police action. I am sure these "innocent civilians" would have danced and chanted on the bodies of our brave soldiers if they were all killed by the IED. If those "innocent citizens" knew there was an IED then they got what they deserved.

Bomber pilots often kill as many "civilians" as they do bad guys. But collateral damage is often a necessary evil.

Exactly.

I wonder what would have been done to the pilots who firebombed Dresden and Tokyo, in todays Kinder-Gentler-Compassionate War Fighting.