Why the US didn't kill 12,000 civilians in 6 weeks of combat in Iraq

[WarGamer]

https://www.justsecurity.org/74619/avoiding-collateral-damage-on-the-battlefield/

I'm far from an apologist for US military adventurism but what we're seeing in Gaza is simply medieval.

Importantly, it is the expected collateral damage and the anticipated military advantage that drive proportionality analysis. Thus, proportionality determinations are made ex ante, not post factum. The determinative factors are what the attacker knew, or should have known, regarding collateral damage and what military advantage the attacker reasonably expected to achieve; proportionality is not assessed based on the collateral damage or military advantage that eventuated, except as they bear on the reasonableness of the attacker’s analysis at the time the attack was planned, approved or executed. In practice, this is a highly subjective determination because it compares dissimilar values – collateral damage and military advantage – that are themselves hard to measure. As a result, while still important, the more protective rule on the battlefield is that requiring precautions.

Compliance with these rules by those conducting attacks is operationalized through guidance imposed by higher echelons of command, processes designed to assess the likelihood of collateral damage and identify ways to avoid causing it, and technologies that offer the attacker precision, greater clarity in the battlespace, and redundant capabilities. We turn to these next.

U.S. and coalition forces use rules of engagement (ROE) to restrict the application of force during armed conflict, in part to limit civilian casualties to the extent feasible (Operational Law Handbook, ch. 5). ROE are more restrictive than LOAC, for they also incorporate policy and operational constraints and are usually tailored to the specific battlefield environment in which they apply. The rules can restrict such matters as acceptable targets, the geographic range of operations, time of operations, and the use of particular munitions. ROE also sometimes reinforce LOAC provisions that might be of particular significance in certain combat environments, such as the prohibitions on the destruction of religious and cultural property when being applied in situations of internecine conflict. In many circumstances, they tighten them, as in the case of restricting operations against religious facilities being illegitimately used by the adversary to self-defense scenarios only.