Two numbers to come out of Iraq in the last day or two are worth considering.  One is the number of civilians possibly killed in a pair of Marine airstrikes against insurgent targets on the Syrian border.  The other is the total number of Iraqis killed by insurgents in the last couple of years.

According to US sources up to six people were killed in the Marine air raid, but predictably Iraqis are claiming at least 20 civilian deaths.

"At least 20 innocent people were killed by the U.S. warplanes. Why are the Americans killing families? Where are the insurgents?" one middle-aged man told APTN. "We don't see democracy. We just see destruction." 

The man quoted didn't identify himself and while I know US casualty counts and estimates are hardly flawless, I tend to credit
American sources more than anonymous Iraqi ones.  But let's just accept for a moment that the raids did kill 20 civilians along with a few insurgents, and destroyed bases or equipment used by the insurgents.  Was the raid justified?

Well consider the second number now.  At least 26,000 Iraqis have been killed by insurgents in the last couple years.  This is not the result of collateral damage but a deliberate policy of mass slaughter.  If taking on insurgent bases near the Syrian border undermines the enemy (which it surely does), and if by doing so those enemy are less able to kill Iraqi civilians, doesn't that make it incumbent on us to use force to strike these people, even if some civilians are hurt.  And if we do not strike, and as a result a few more suicide bombs explode, isn't that a mistake?

The problem is that there is not sure showing of cause and effect.  I can't prove to you that killing six insurgents near Syria today will prevent a suicide bombing in Bagdhad tomorrow.  But hunting down and killing the enemy is the logic of war, and ugly as it is, the logic of war mostly works.  Moralist decry such logic as means/end.  But war is always a case of means end logic, whether you are strictly killing designated warriors, or accidentally killing civilians in the process.  It's important not to kill civilians for no purpose, or indiscriminately, but to restrict vital operations and risk lose elite troops to protect civilians who might be killed or injured is not the path to victory.

In World War II we devastated French cities and towns throughout Normandy and along the vital rail routes that led to the invasion sites.  Tens of thousands of French civilians died.  It was a case of pure means/end war logic.  Revisionist historians sometimes try to claim that particular raids, especially the carpet bombing of Caen, were unsuccessful and only resulted in civilian suffering.  But that is 20/20 hindsight.  Would it have been better to risk the defeat of the cross-channel invasion and another few years of Nazi dominion?  How many more innocent civilians would have died then to pursue an acceptable moral outcome?  No.  Wars must be waged to be ended, the quickest way possible.  That spares soldiers and civilians alike.  If raids like yesterday's bring victory closer by an hour, they are worth it, and not to be quibbled about.