Posted on 09/16/2009 5:51:05 AM PDT by SJackson
The New York Times, which vociferously opposes the murder of noncombatants, was indirectly involved in the deaths of women, children and other civilians just a week ago. It happened near Kunduz, Afghanistan, when British and Afghani commandos liberated kidnapped Times journalist Stephen Farrell: Civilians were caught in the cross-fire and killed, as was Farrell's Afghani interpreter.
Had the Times, a bastion of opposition to harming to civilians in war zones, known that civilians would be killed in the rescue, would it have preferred that the operation be called off, and that Farrell remain in the hands of his captors? What will it write if a similar operation is undertaken to release Gilad Shalit?
Unlike journalists, governments and field commanders deal with this dilemma every day. It is easy to decide when the target is a battalion of tanks in the desert. But it is more complex when the threat to a military unit comes from within a civilian environment - the very civilians the unit has been sent to protect. Ignoring the nature of military action is the height of hypocrisy. The leader of the United Nations fact-finding mission, Richard Goldstone, ought to be smart enough to know that in reality, the gold and the stone are not separated, they are entwined.
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