Redaction in Action

[andrewducker]

Chatting to spidermonster yesterday and he forwarded me bits of a BBC article that started

Gen Caldwell said Wednesday night was the first time US forces had "definite unquestionable information" they could strike the target without causing collateral damage to civilians.

and finished

They were followed "very shortly thereafter" by US ground forces, who "swept through the site and identified six persons that had been killed in that strike at that time". The dead included a woman and a child, and two others still to be identified.

Which makes sense only if you don't count Iraqi children as civilians.

I then popped over to the BBC to see this for myself. To find that some articles mentioned the child, but the one that he'd sent me the clipping from didn't. And then, when I went back to look at the article that mentioned the child it had been updated to read

On Thursday he said the six bodies included a child, but on Friday he said his information had changed. There were three dead men, three dead women, and no children.

All of which makes you wonder. It really does...

Comments

[andrewducker]

It was the "civilians" bit that seemed contradictory.

And yes, some deaths are more deserved than others. While I don't like the idea of people being killed, I can see it as sometimes being necessary, and the deaths of people who weren't connected bothers me more than the deaths of people who were deliberately engaged in the fight.