[Yes, it’s from 2002. I am not letting this kind of nonsense go.]

I am getting really sick of people who whine about “civilian casualties.” Maybe I'm a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don’t really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian. For the past decade, the United States and Israel have been attempting to prove their moral superiority by attempting to minimize civilian casualties. That’s all well and good. Unfortunately, this policy also means that politicians put our soldiers in harm’s way in order to save “non-combatants.”

The New York Times reported on July 21 that “Flaws in U.S. Air War Left Hundreds of Civilians Dead” in Afghanistan. In its own, unique “objective” style, the Times noted: “the American air campaign in Afghanistan, based on a high-tech, out-of-harm’s-way strategy, has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians.” The New York Times and other news services call both Afghan “non-combatants” and American “non-combatants” civilians. This is disingenuous. American civilians are people who go about their daily lives without providing cover for terrorists or giving them money. Afghan civilians are not. Take, for example, the “wedding party” in Afghanistan that made front-page news after being strafed by American warplanes. The American pilots claimed that they came under fire from the wedding party. The Afghan interim government claimed that 48 civilians were killed in the attack and that the Americans had never come under fire. Perhaps, they suggested, the pilots were confused by Afghans firing their guns in the air in celebration. Whom do you believe? The American pilots, who say they were fired upon and respected the rules of engagement? Or the Afghan “civilians,” who claim that American pilots were bored and decided to have target practice with women, children and goats? I believe the Americans. The Afghans tolerated and supported the Taliban for years, no matter what President Bush says. A group doesn’t conquer 95 percent of a country unless it has some support among the populace. The Afghans are fundamentalist Muslims.