I made no statement about, nor meant to imply any difference in the value of any human beings, or that one death “means” more than another.

My statement says exactly what I meant, that the death of a child in war is a tragedy not of its making, produced by events it has yet to have had a chance to influence.

The fact that you “feel” something else in it comes from your worldview, not mine.
Your clumsy attempt to tie my regret that this kid died because someone dropped a box of pamphlets on her to some bizarre idea about it being an anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive statement is absurd on its face.

And if you really think that regret about this kids death is the equivalent of an “omg-think-of-the-children” parody from South Park, you really need a humanity transplant.

But really, who reads a leaflet that drops from a military plane and is convinced of something. Ispecially since there is no front in this war and no real barrier keeping military folks from just handing out said leaflets.

Slightly off-topic: Is it just me, or are Afghan women indeed notably beautiful?

Yeah, I’d say we owe them blood money. FAST. It’s about the only thing we can do to express regret in a form that will be semi-believable.

ok, sure, my bad.

>you really need a humanity transplant.

heh.

As guidedbyVOIP @36 pointed out, “Leaflet boxes are designed to turn inside out when they are tossed”. This particular box failed to do that for some reason.

Meanwhile, the seemingly-antiquated practice of leaflet bombing continues. In the 21st century, it remains one of the primary tools of psychological warfare…

“Seemingly-antiquated?” What would be better? Twitter perhaps?

O_o Epic fail!

But don’t you consider the soldiers themselves to be children? I don’t mean that patronizingly, they do just seem to be impossibly young. At least too young to be dying, anyway. You see their pictures on the Newshour. They leave behind their mothers, children. It’s all really unbearably sad.

I know we are the invading army and everything, but I have nothing but compassion for every person fighting there. It’s an impossible situation. Let’s not forget all the militants that we’re fighting have mothers and children, too.

War and bloodshed is just never okay. IMO

“As God is my witness, I thought [leaflets] could fly.”

These incidents hurt the cause of the forces fighting the Taliban more than the Taliban’s own guns and bombs.

It is of course tragic that anyone dies because diplomacy becomes violence. Soldiers (or those soldiers not coerced into being soldiers) have some personal responsibility for their role, some awareness of and training for the violence, and if they die they have died after some self-actualization, however brief. They share some of the burden of the responsibility for their death.

Civilian adults who die in war share less responsibility for their deaths than do soldiers, but at least have had a chance to become an active member of society and been able to make decisions that affect the world around them, even if only in a small way.

When a young child dies, none of these things are true. All of the potential contained within that child dies unrealized, and all of the responsibility for that death lies with us and our failure to find a better way. This is why buddy66 was wholly correct to say “the death of children in war is absolutely diminishing.”