This should be the first lesson for any soldier:
"Never, ever fire your weapon on a unconfirmed target even if the action of studying the target increase your own risk."

The risk of being killed in the line of duty are part of the job of being a soldier. A soldier must be willing to accept increased risks for himself if that is needed to protect the civilian population. This way of thinking will also reduce the risk of "friendly fire".

This rule also apply to the police and hunters and other in similar situations like demolition workers that are about to take down a building.

__________________
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche

It wasn't a "wedding party." And the U.S. found no evidence that children were killed. But they did find "cash, weapons, and foreign passports." One Iraqi there who reported this to the Arab news said they didn't fire at all....they were just minding their business and the U.S. just came in and dropped hundred of bombs on them! So, which was it? Did they fire in "wedding celebration" or not? Looks like even those present can't get their stories straight.

40 killed, all men and no women or children present. And it was a location that had previously fired on US forces. I guess that's what happens when people looking for something/anything to hold over the heads of the US believe initial reports. Especially when those reports are from suspicious sources.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

My nomination for ill-considered comment of the day. Let's have all of our pilots who are fired upon to wait for independent ground verification of hostile intent before they retaliate. LOL.

...I can see our ground forces now... "Excuse me sir! Are you firing your gun at me? Oh you are? Okay, I just wanted to make sure you weren't just firing in my general direction for your own pleasure. Okay. I'm going to go back over to my trench and fire back, m'kay?"

This just helps prove my notion of the media being liberal. All the major media outlets just accepted that this was a wedding because that's what the Arab news sources were telling them. Now the truth comes out, and it makes the media look as ridiculous as they ought to.

I'll tell you, if we end up losing this war (which we won't) it will be largely the doing of the liberal media, which has almost taken sides with the radical Muslims here. It's a bloody shame that our own media is really against us in this war. During times of war we should all unite together, regardless of our political stances. I fully supported the involvement in Kosovo, even though I thought that we didn't have any reason to be there.

The link you gave links to the wrong thing. They updated the main page.

The US military story still seems shaky, and there are those 40 corpses whose deaths are to be explained.

IMO, there probably was somesort of target as ground forces described, however the air strike was misplaced. Probably an unintended hit, but the constant denial of the USM of doing any wrong anywhere is not helping.

Maybe it was a gay marriage and Bush wanted to use it as a warning to the "evil sodomites" here in the US who want equal rights.

LOL

__________________
"They misunderestimated me."
--George W Bush

Apparently it was a safe house. In any event it obviously was not a wedding. Not a lot to explain about 40 dead bodies if in fact it was a safe house. False passports, weapons, previous firing of weapons from the house, etc.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ack/index.html