I heard the story this morning on NPR, and haven't taken the time to look up a link, but the gist of it is a common enough story: the US conducted surveillance on a site, determined it was being used exclusively by The Enemy, and conducted a bombing run. Afterwards, it was determined that 7 children were inside, and are now dead.
Part of me is shocked at the tragedy. How awful! How could we do such a thing!
And part of me says, "But why were the militants hiding with kids, anyway?" I mean, what kind of sick-o keeps his military might and his future generations in the same place, knowing that bombing raids are imminent?
A lot of questions come from this, as it isn't a particularly uncommon case. This happens to Israel all the time -- they strike a building full of terrorists, and school-children across the street get hit by the shrapnel. Terrorists hide in mosques, and the bombs wipe out a structure hundreds of years old, including the sick and elderly who were nearby. It's really an awful thing.
The Law of Armed Conflict says that you shouldn't co-locate war stuff with peace stuff. It is against the rules to park your tanks in the playground of a daycare, for example. But is it ok to bomb the guys tanks, if he's parked them in the playground of an active daycare? If you do bomb the tanks, you lose the war because of bad
PR. If you don't bomb the tanks, you lose the war because he's got invincible military strength.
What does this group think about the topic? Is it ok to bomb a mosque full of children, if you know it's also full of suicide bombers and their leadership? Is it prohibited to kill our enemies if even one innocent life is lost? Why?