Someone is dreadfully unclear on the concept: This paragraph is snipped from a Newhouse chain paper. The reporter discusses a paper published by an officer connected with a military thinktank.

At one point the Web site of the popular Arab satellite television station, Al-Jazeera, featured what it said were photographs of children killed by American weapons. Newhouse

"...(C)hildren killed by American weapons?"

Sorry to disabuse the writer (or editor) on this point, but, for the record, K-bar knives do not slice ears off of their own accord. Rifles do not fire themselves off.

Missiles do not push the button that launches them. Pilots and bombardiers must pull a lever or touch an ignition to get the game going or nothing happens.

No one gets killed without the impetus of some human agency. That is to say, it is safe to assume there is a private, a sergeant, a second louie, or a brigadier general somewhere in that food chain.

True, the interaction between a landmine and its victim is long range, and pretty much a thing between individual metal and meat. But there would be no blast without a soldier laying the mine in its hiding place. So that opportunistic self-distancing.

A certain amount of therapeutic denial going on here, no doubt about it.