Since when does the US Government Care about Protecting Civilians during War?

It is unclear how bombing a building on Gadhafi’s compound fits under the category of saving civilians. Reporters who inspected the rubble said that it had been used by Gadhafi to receive dignitaries—including previously some of the reporters—but appeared to have no command or communications equipment. [MORE] 

From [HERE] Whether you believe that the United Nations resolution authorizing extensive intervention in the Libyan civil war is justified or not, and whether you believe that the admittedly eccentric 42-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi over a complex and fractious tribal society has been cruel, there is one thing that all objective observers should be able to agree on.

All should agree that the rationale put forth by the United States government for supporting the impending NATO intervention – that this action is to be taken to bring about an immediate end to attacks on civilians – is one of the biggest acts of hypocrisy in a modern era ridden with hypocrisy.

There is, of course, no arguing with the principle put forth. The protection of civilians in times of warfare, a moral good in itself, is a requirement of international law.Yet it is a requirement that is almost always ignored.

And no great power has ignored it more than the United States.In Iraq, the civilian death count due to the American invasion may well have approached one million. In Afghanistan, again directly due to the war initiated by U.S. intervention, civilian deaths between 2007 and 2010 are estimated at about 10,000.In Vietnam, United States military intervention managed to reduce the civilian population by about two million.

And then there is United States protection of the Israeli process of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. America’s hypocrisy as Washington consistently does nothing about the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the slow reduction of a million and half Gazans to poverty and malnutrition.And, finally, the unforgettable hypocrisy inherent in U.S. support for the 2009 Israeli invasion of that tiny and crowded enclave. The 2009 invasion was the most striking example of an outright attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure since the World War II.And the American government supported every single moment of it.