This fairly straightforward article in the NY Times headlined “U.S. investigates civilian toll in airstrike, but holds insurgents responsible” describes a recent raid in Iraq that killed nineteen of the enemy who were the targets but also inadvertently led to the deaths of nine children and six women.

I say the story is relatively straightforward because it neither sensationalizes the deaths of the innocent victims nor demonizes those who killed them. Of course, it initially refers to the targets as “insurgents” and only later reveals they were members of al Qaeda, but that’s very small potatoes compared to some of the twistings and distortions of which the press seems almost infinitely capable.

The Times quotes the succinct explanation offered for the killings by Rear Adm. Greg Smith:

“The enemy has a vote here,” Admiral Smith said, “and when he chooses to surround himself with civilians and then fire upon U.S. forces, our forces have no choice but to return a commensurate amount of fire. Which is what they did last evening.”

No doubt some Times readers will see this as a weak excuse, manufactured by a bloody-minded military either intent on harming civilians, or acting in reckless disregard for their safety. Of course, such critics never quite explain what the armed forces in such situations are supposed to do instead, other than effectively commit suicide by refusing to fire back if there’s any chance of killing innocent civilians—which would be the case in virtually all conflicts against Islamist totalitarian terrorists.

The story reminded me once again that, as I put it in this post, it is an ironic fact and a harsh demonstration of the law of unintended consequences that those who most decry such killings are also an inadvertent cause of them:

It’s an almost inescapable but horrifying conclusion that if US and Israeli and other fighting forces were less intent on protecting children, fewer children would be purposely sent into harm’s way by the fanatics of the Moslem world. And, likewise, if the western MSM were not so intent on publicizing their deaths and criticizing those who kill them more than than they criticize the people who send those children out to be killed, the propaganda value in the West of the whole operation would be nil, and there probably would be less reason for the adults to put them in harm’s way. This represents a conundrum of major proportions.

What’s our own MSM to do? Even if they were well aware of their own dubious role in the matter, would the solution be to not cover such incidents? That doesn’t seem right, either. But in covering them, an effort should be made to prominently include the full context in which they occur. The Times seems to have done that here. If it continues to do so in the future, perhaps such events will lose some of their propaganda value to the enemy, who might therefore be less inclined to set up such situations in the first place.

One can hope, anyway.