Suppose a terrorist took over a school in the United States and held all the children hostage. Suppose the government responded to the terrorist by dropping a bomb on the school and killing inside. Wouldn't everyone here agree that such an act would be so completely unjustified and immoral that we should treat it as downright criminal? Wouldn't we all think that the members of the government responsible for this should be held accountable in a court of law, and go to prison for thier crimes? The problem would be that they didn't even attempt an alternative to maximize the survival rate of innocents involved while trying to stop the terrorist- even though doing so would increase the possibility of a law enforcement officer being hurt. The goal, in other words, should be to protect the innocent at all costs. Violating thier rights, by killing them, is inexcusable even if you do stop the "bad guy" in the process.

Why shouldn't the same be true in war? Persoanlly, I think that any time there are more innocent civilian deaths than enemy combatant deaths in a war, a war crime trial should be automatic. There is simply no excuse for using tactics that wipe out mass civilians when other tactics are available that would be more precise in killing only the combatants. The extra lives your own army looses are the price you pay for going to war in the first place- pretending that a few lives of your own military are more important than the (far greater number of) innocents, and disregarding the lives and rights of those innocents in favor of your own military, is downright criminal. And why shouldn't it be treated as such?

Totally with you

the only problem is that it is the judges that are doing the bombings....