Airstrikes are a tempting solution for large Western government to use against lesser states as a means of reprisal, punishment or warning. What are the targets and who gets killed?

Targets of planned airstrikes include military command headquarters, military intelligence buildings and sources of power such as power stations and oil refineries.  Blowing up these buildings is done as a warning or to reprimand the leaders of foreign countries, but the leaders do not reside in them.  In the former they are typically occupied by civil servants (civilians) with a number of seconded military personnel (so non-combatants at the time) and the latter are occupied by civilians.

So successful airstrikes kill receptionists, cleaners, clerks, administrators, IT staff, accountants, canteen workers, overnight security guards, office visitors, facilities management staff, technicians as well as the operational staff on site.

How does that provide justice for anyone?  Especially when disrupting ‘the command, control and communications network‘ actually means blowing up a TV station, killing 16 people and injuring 16 more.

The good news is that we are better now at targeted bombing than we were back in the WWII days of carpet bombing.  For example, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, there were only 90 or so incidents in which civilians being killed, with an average of only about 5 or 6 civilian deaths per incident.

“Statistically speaking, civilian casualties were lighter than any other conflict involving modern mass air power.“

Bombing refugees once or twice, is considered bad form – good job Yugoslavia wasn’t in the UN at the time.

Unsuccessful airstrikes – those where we thought we knew who we were killing from thousands of miles away – are even less pleasant.

The 1993 revenge attack on Iraq for trying to blow up George Bush Senior involved firing 23 cruise missiles – costing between US$13m and US$33m – at the Iraqi Intelligence Service HQ.  It destroyed three houses and killed eight civilians.  Not a very effective use of taxpayers’ money; the Israelis can achieve the same thing with bulldozers.

7th May 1999.  NATO bombs supposedly aimed at the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement were actually hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three people and injuring 20 more.

As for drone killings, well, do your own search to see how effective they are at killing civilians.

The targets are not evil tyrants, tanks, artillery, missiles, or armed soldiers.  They are buildings containing mostly civilians.

Even if the airstrikes hit the intended targets, it is civilians that get killed.  Are you OK with that?