There is a distinction between accidentally killing someone and intentionally doing so. But it isn't a black and white distinction.When we know that the likely or even the certain consequence of our action is that someone will die, I don't think it is right to describe it as "accidental"

In the case of death in the course of interrogation it gets even more complicated. One method of interrogation which has been around for a long time has been to kill one person as a way of inducing other people to provide information. Sometimes this is done directly, for example by picking a prisoner more or less at random and shooting them, or beatingbthem to death. Sometimes it is less direct - when a prisoner dies in the course of interrogation, that death will be used as a form of inducement, perhaps with the added refinement of video-tapes of it happening. Can such deaths be described properly as "accidental".

Again, if an occupying power threatens that, unless insurgents surrender, there will be an bombardment of an area, or is there is such a bombardment as a reprisal, I cannot see the completely predictable killings of non-combatants that result as falling within the accidental category.

Noone should try to diminish the stark horror any sane human must feel at the kind of public and premeditated killings of captives we have seen - but that should never be used to diminish our horror at the other types of atrocity that are around. In fact our reaction should be the reverse - a realization that this in really what it is like, even when it isn't taking place in the glare of the spotlight.