<
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/11/the-u-s-built-a-blueprint-to-avoid-civilian-war-casualties-trump-officials-scrapped-it/>
"Images from the missile strike in southern Iran were more horrifying than any
of the case studies Air Force combat veteran Wes J. Bryant had pored over in
his mission to overhaul how the U.S. military safeguards civilian life.
Parents wept over their children’s bodies. Crushed desks and blood-stained
backpacks poked through the rubble. The death toll from the attack on an
elementary school in Minab climbed past 165, most of them under age 12, with
nearly 100 others wounded, according to Iranian health officials. Photos of
small coffins and rows of fresh graves went viral, a devastating emblem of Day
1 in the open-ended U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
Bryant, a former special operations targeting specialist, said he couldn’t help
but think of what-ifs as he monitored fallout from the Feb. 28 attack.
Just over a year ago, he had been a senior adviser in an ambitious new Defense
Department program aimed at reducing civilian harm during operations. Finally,
Bryant said, the military was getting serious about reforms. He worked out of a
newly opened Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, where his supervisor was
a veteran strike-team targeter who had served as a United Nations war crimes
investigator.
Today, that momentum is gone. Bryant was forced out of government in cuts last
spring. The civilian protection mission was dissolved as Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority. And the world has witnessed a tragedy
in Minab that, if U.S. responsibility is confirmed, would be the most civilians
killed by the military in a single attack in decades.
Dismantling the fledgling harm-reduction effort, defense analysts say, is among
several ways the Trump administration has reorganized national security around
two principles: more aggression, less accountability."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
