I freely admit that my story is slowly evolving. Throughout this thread I've been gradually backing off of my earlier comment that "American military lives are more precious than lives of civilians" because that's probably not the case. A life is a life. But if it's me with the M-16 in my hand in the middle of Basra and it's my life that's on the line, you better believe my life is more precious than someone else's... And if I'm told I have to wait until I see a weapon POINTED AT ME before I'm allowed to classify someone as a combatant (that's the orders that were given initially) I have to say I'm calling bullshit. This isn't Hogan's Alley. It's real life and death.

However, my recent trend towards pointing out that moving the "sliding scale" a little bit will probably equal less death long-term, even if it might cause a few more civilian deaths in the short term, is not part of my efforts to back away from my original point. It's just a conclusion that I've come to whilst debating the issue. It's hard to argue against, especially when the Iraqis are killing civilians themselves, on purpose.