"...the Marines of Generation Kill set up checkpoints on roads that are used by civilians as well as fighters who are not in uniform. The consequences are not attractive, and these gut-wrenching scenes illustrate the tactics and guesswork that lead to tragedy­--not only for the civilians who are in the wrong place at the wrong time but for the Marines who must live with the awfulness of their lethal mistakes. The battalion I was with killed a number of civilians after storming across a bridge, and afterward, a lance corporal surveying the carnage angrily told me, "How can you tell who's who? I don't think I have ever read about a war in which innocent people didn't die." Shooting at approaching Iraqis without knowing for sure whom you are shooting at­ this practice began in March 2003 and continues today, because it's unavoidable with an imperfect military and a confusing battle space."

So it is. All militaries are imperfect, as are all human contrivances, most battle spaces are radically confusing, and "fighters who are not in uniform" have traditionally been understood to be in violation of the laws of war. Even today the legality of masquerading as a civilian is at best doubtful, and many civilian casualties in Iraq (and other places) are an inevitable consequence of the increasingly practice of irregular combatants scorning their traditional obligations to identify themselves on a battlefield. This does not mean that savage criticism of American conduct in war is impossible, nor that attempts at reform are misguided: attempts to restrain the violence of war are often admirable, and sometimes possible; attempts to insist that modern war can be conducted without error, and without civilian casualties, are mad, and the results demanded impossible. When we demand that armies attempt impossibilities, we are insisting that they fail, and we may unwittingly sabotage the possibility for moderation, and make victory less likely. The alternative to implied utopianism is not a notion that inter arma silent leges: war's immense difficulty and intrinsic extremity do not mean that we are permitted to do anything we assert is necessary. Some errors are culpable errors, and some soldiers commit war crimes. But we do not make the identification of culpable error (or the punishment of crime) more likely when we assert or imply impossible standards. The television version of Generation Kill, while marred by its aspiration to omniscient hindsight, remains better on this score than are almost all of its critics. Warts and all, it is a splendid piece of work.