by Bobby Brown

Created on: October 27, 2009   Last Updated: November 07, 2009

On November 3, 2002, American intelligence agencies intercepted a phone call from a cellular phone known to be used by suspected terrorist Qaed Salim Sinanal-Harethi. Initially analysts were certain that neither voice being overheard belonged to al-Harethi. Eventually, however, the analysts were able to hear a third voice which they positively identified as al-Harethi. In less than one hour, an unmanned Predator drone (the same kind of pilot-less aircraft featured in the movie Eagle Eye) fired a single Hellfire missile that-true to it's name-sent al-Harethi and all other occupants of the car straight to Hell. Those "other occupants" included Kamel Derwish- an American citizen. I don't know whether government officials or intelligence personnel knew that Kamel was in the vechicle before it burst into flames, though it should be noted that he wasdenied his constitutional right to due process.

Nonetheless, Kamel became another innocent victim in the War on Terror. (I use the term "innocent" hear very loosely; Kamel may have had ties to terrorism but the target of the assasination was al-Harethi) He like so many others just happened to be in the kill zone when the bombs started falling, and at the risk of sounding incredibly callous about the issue, bombs, and missiles are not as "smart" as the media and military want people to believe. Having said that, the main issue with civilian casualties and the current conflict is that the terrorists have decided that civilians are legitimate targets. This should not be a surprise to anyone since they are terrorist after all, but it does cause a real (PR) problem for the U.S. and it's dwindling number of allies.

All warfare has a psychological component to it. It could be argued that the main component of war is this psychological element. The objective of combat is not so much to destroy the enemy as it is to get the enemy to stop fighting. This is why so much money and time is spent on wartime propaganda. Al Qaeda, the Taliban and others know this and they also know that the best way to effect the American psyche is to have mass media bombard us with more and more deaths of "innocent" civilians at the hand of American troops. We Americans may not like the fact that soldiers, sailors and airmen are dying in armed combat, but we have a much harder time understanding why civilians have to die in armed combat.

As in the story of Kamel Derwish, though civilians are never directly targeted by the US, sometimes the death

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>