barsoap ,

Are the civilian victims less dead? Do their families feel differently?

No, and no. But intent still matters. Afghans learned that when you stand next to the wrong type of person, you could be hit, that if you stumbled across the wrong spot, like a hidden US observation post while herding your sheep, you could be hit.

There's at least a plausible connection to military necessity. The US approach helps them fuck all when it comes to winning hearts and minds, and you're still breeding resistance by eliminating that shepherd who stumbled across your position instead of calling a chopper to evacuate and relocate, but the people overall don't feel like they're being exterminated -- because they aren't. Because in the end, the US does have restraint, sometimes even to the degree that they're willing to lose a battle over it, that was the case in Afghanistan for Taliban etc. holed up in Mosques.

That is, there's insufficient regard for the civilian population on the US side, they're prioritising tactical military goals too much -- but not completely. The IDF doesn't even know what regard for civilians is. The US is court marshalling soldiers left and right when they misbehave, Israel is applying military law to 10yold Palestinians who lobbed a stone at a tank, dishing out decade-long sentences. US soldiers carry sweets to hand out to kids. Those two attitudes are not the same, and if you think they are, you're trivialising genocide.

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