Stephen, you disappoint me. If you can't see that today's event was a HUGE mistake that must force reflection and change by the US military, then there's something missing in your soul. Imagine the family's wiped out by that bomb. The little girls in wedding dresses blown to pieces. Why? That's not as easy a question to answer than in October. The Isreali's aren't dropping bombs on unconfirmed enemies in the dark just so that there is no risk to their troops. Shouldn't we at least strive to be as good as Isreal in our war on terror?

PJ, that might be nice if we were trying to pacify, say, New Jersey -- which is still many, many times larger than the West Bank.

The last time I checked, Afghanistan was a bit further away, and just a tad larger -- and just one of our many commitments. Israel has a greater comparative force to use against a smaller foe who lies literally within walking distance.

Look at the logistics, please PJ, before spouting off nonsense. You'll seem much less foolish and perhaps slightly less stupidly smug.

As for the UK not starting the Boer War, in the most limited sense this is true. However, every legitimate historian I know of says it was provoked by agents of the UK, like Cecil Rhodes, who either acted under inadequate supervision from London, or with a wink and a nod from London.

As for UK concentration camps during the war, they were truly death camps. The evidence that I am familiar with (mainly Packenham), points not to muderous intent, but criminal negligence, in their facilities making them breeding grounds for epidemics.

Whereas the previous policy was to oust the Boer's families, burn their farms, seize their livestock, and put them in camps where they would be provided for (however inadequately), the policy subsequent to the revalations about camp conditions was to leave the families amidst the ashes of their farms, with not even a nod towards their distress, and was, argueably, more cruel.

Okinawa: a quarter of a million dead, 150,000 of whom were non-combatants. This is typical of WWII not some anomaly. The idea that civilians get killed in war, and in large numbers, is a tragedy. It is not new(s).

PS: Inquiry for Stephen or other readers: Is that Packenham book on the Boer War anything exceptional? Its been collecting dust on my shelf for years. Motivate me (or not) somebody.

Killing civilians has, sadly, been more of a normal than an extraordinary policy. It is worth remembering that the Thirty Years' War effectively DEPOPULATED the Central German Plain, through repeated battles and the scourge of wandering bands of "soldiers," more properly seen as mercenaries and brigands. Avoiding civilian casualties is a blip from around the late 1600s through the mid-1800s, and even then, did not apply to wars involving non-Europeans.

The one theme among European wars of this period is that they were, for the most part, not wars of national survival; one should note that Spain and Russia both perceived Napoleon to be a national threat worthy of guerilla warfare and harsh reprisals.

As for Britain's record, one should note, if nothing else, the Opium Wars, wherein Britain fought two wars in order to secure its right to supply opium to the Chinese, in order to addict them and ensure a customer base for its product (and, in the process, secure Hong Kong and a few other choice pieces of real estate). Something all too many folks forget.....

And please note that the concept of saturation bombing of European cities during WWII was concieved by a Brit, Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris.

You all seem to be missing the point. Sure civilian casualties during a war are inevitable. Its one of the reasons smart people flee a war zone. For this reason, it was pretty hard to get worked up about the chinese journalists killed in Serbia because they knew they were in a city targeted for bombing. But what are the Afghans to do? Treat our search for rogue terrorists as an interminable war. We will never have them all. Should we continue to bomb without any adjustment of our tolerance for errors now that they have installed a government allied with us and we, in effect, control all of Afghanistan. In WWII analogies, it would be like continuing to bomb France as part of a search fpr Vichy partisans in September 1945. It's not a perfect analogy. We need to continue to use military force in Afghanistan, but we can't just shrug off deadly screw ups as simply --oops, we killed off a wedding party, so sorry, but go about your business, isn't the new regime great.

First off, let's not be like over-anxious journalists and speak about the "hundreds of casualties" as though it were fact. The FACT is, we really don't know everything that happened because a thorough investigation has yet to be undertaken. Most of what we 'know' has been second-hand info passed along by 'eyewitnesses.' They could be lying, exaggerating, or telling the truth - we don't know yet. Let's wait and find out the circumstances before we start jumping to conclusions about 'mass casualties' (as reported by the news services.) Let's wait and find out if 1) we really did screw up, 2) acted in self-defense because they fired into the air, 3) was an errant bomb or 4) there's another explanation entirely. I've learned not to trust the accuracy of the various news agencies. Sadly, their perspective and objectivity sometimes get lost in the interest of a 'breaking story.'