So ignoring the silly numpty responses, and the obviously 'one-sided' viewpoints, the sad fact still seems to remain that nation states, of all sorts, commit or are complicit in the wanton act of killing civilians. I'll ignore the killing of off-duty military for now, 'cos I don't believe it's possible for military personnel to be 'off-duty'. If you're engaged in fighting the enemy then surely you're fair game on or off-duty, in uniform or not.
Now, we are aware, and some might say subjected to, propogandistic terms to explain and diminish our reaction to such events, when they are committed in our name. Most of those terms are also attempts to persuade us that our governments are acting morally, out-of-necessity, in-our-best-interests or against-aggression, etc.
Disregarding for now which nation state started the conflict(s), it all comes down, IMHO, to the competitive mentality of men to own or control the best resources, land, access to suitable mates, or even the 'current moral judgement'.
So, is the killing of innocent civilians perpetuated, under the guise of 'war-on-terror', war-on-drugs', war-against-dictatorship', etc merely the act of the collective competitive nature of humanity?
Now, I think it's necessary, temporarily, to switch over to another thread; Does God exist, or whatever the thread was called, and dicuss whether man was created in God's image, linking that with our innate competitive nature. I hope you'll see where I'm going with this.
Edit: Just arrived back from t'other post, and methinks, that's enough for a little while. Maybe I'll pick up on another direction later, i.e. man's competitive nature driving him to own or control the best resources, land, access to mates, etc. In other words the socio, geo-political reasons behind wars and the pursuit of governments to justify the reasons to the populace, hence the need to diminish or increase the deplorability of killing civilians.
