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Are civilian casualties an unacceptable price of war, or a necessary cost towards peace? When are civilian casualties an acceptable circumstance of war, and when not?

Perception is key to understanding the acceptability or otherwise of killing non-military innocents, and particularly where an influential power such as the US is involved. Why, for example, were civilian deaths deemed relatively acceptable by many during the US-led Iraq war, but not in Israel's 2006 attack on the Lebanon, carried out using arms rushed to Israel by the US? The answer, perhaps, lies behind the reason for going to war. In the case of Iraq, the aim was to remove a ruthless dictator and his many cronies who were driving the country into the ground, and who were perceived as being a threat to the rest of the world because of an apparent possession of weapons of mass destruction. The US forces were reported to have tried to keep accidental civilian deaths to a minimum. In the case of Israel, mass destruction was inflicted on a small Middle Eastern state, in which a huge amount of international aid had been invested to rebuild infrastructure destroyed in past conflicts, after three soldiers had been killed and two kidnapped by Hezbollah. The result was substantial civilian casualties caused by heavy-handed and indiscriminate bombing, widespread destruction of communities and further Israeli military deaths - and became more than even many Israelis could stomach. With the addition of widespread international condemnation, it was clear to many that the extent of the action far exceeded the reasons behind it.

In the case of Somalia, the attempted capture or killing of three al-Qaeda operatives by US troops, as part of the Bush administration's "war on terror", since entering the country in January 2007 has led to substantial civilian deaths and international criticism. Since December 2006, when Ethiopian troops toppled the Somali Islamist government and were subsequently joined by the US troops, the consequent unrest has resulted in an estimated 6,000 deaths in Mogadishu alone (http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200801180962.html). Comparison might readily be made with Israel's 2006 raids on the Lebanon: in both cases, civilian deaths were high.

Of course, these two conflicts share one key factor: a perception of fundamentalist Islam being in control. In the Lebanon it was Hezbollah, regarded as backed by Syria, itself seen as a rogue state. In Somalia, it was an Islamist government seen as having

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