Terrorists Are to Blame for Civilian Deaths in War

The errant rocket fired by terrorists in the Gaza Strip last week that hit an Arab hospital was the fault of the terrorists, not only for launching the war, but firing such weapons in civilian areas. Islamists use people, including both hostages and their own people, as human shields, establishing firing positions and placing stores of munitions in residential neighborhoods, including even in mosques, contrary to the laws of war. The strike against the hospital in Gaza is a reminder of the blaming by isolationists on both the left and the far right of the United States for high estimated civilian death tolls from the Liberation of Iraq, which was a battle that began in 2003 in the War on Terrorism. The war began after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks against America by al-Qaeda, the Islamist Terrorists based in Afghanistan with affiliates around the Islamic world. Baathist Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein fired indiscriminately from civilian areas, with their own weapons striking civilians, and engaged in the aforementioned type of war crimes. The Baathist regime also fomented an Islamist insurgency by creating the Fedayeen, which launched an insurgency against the U.S. and its coalition allies after the overthrow of Hussein, which Baathists and Islamists like al-Qaeda joined, working together. Furthermore, Islamist terrorists had been present in Iraq, namely Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which later split off into the “Islamic State.” Other jihadists from around the Islamic world were attracted to Iraq, where they murdered innocent civilians. They especially targeted Shi’ites to foment division between them and Sunni Muslims, which was unsuccessful. These jihadists focused on Iraq, instead of Afghanistan, as they recognized its significance as a battlefield in the War on Terrorism. They would have been killing people in Afghanistan or elsewhere around the world had they not traveled to Iraq, where thousands of them were captured or killed in a crushing defeat. Moreover, as terrorists are civilians, they and those who harbor or finance them may sometimes be included in the totals of civilians killed, but should not be counted as deaths of innocent civilians.