The New York Times explains that the Pentagon's new plan aims to change the whole culture so that preventing collateral damage is seen as part of the mission, rather than just some sidepiece. (Here's the whole plan if you like documents.)
As if it's not always been technically considered best practices to try not to kill civilians (DUH), but now everyone can pull out their cell phone and share very quickly with the world when American troopers do terrible awful things like kill the enemies of civilization's pet dog or Abdulla's wife/house slave accidentally gets blowed up.
Heavens forbid the military were to harm an international terrorist's gardener or his favorite sex partner's veterinarian when an American Fly Boy drops a thousand pound smart bomb through the window of Mohammed's man-cave.
The directive contains 11 major objectives aimed at helping commanders and operators better understand the presence of noncombatants before any operations begin. It includes steps like embedding officials with the specific duty of mitigating civilian harm through policy components of the Pentagon. (Old Soviet Political Officers come to mind here)
The statement is short on actual mechanics, but this could be a job creator for Brandon, with a surplus of public school grief councilors and a crop of freshly graduated social workers we can imagine them hired as 'pre-attack collateral damage consultants', sent in to explaining to the civilian population what a cruise missile does to a mudbrick building, or that a 50 cal make really nasty holes and that they might consider relocating their ass down the street a piece before the shit starts.
FYI-in case you were worried we were going totally woke.
This from Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official. “This is a sea change. It doesn’t mean civilians won’t be killed in war anymore. They will."
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