non-combatant civilian deaths

can include according to Carol

someone's ancient grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep.

Interesting. Each day I learn something new in English.

Combined with...

If I read just that one sentence quoted prominently by Carol I wonder how anyone can take them serious anymore

Seems to be the crux of your inability to converse coherently in English, Wolfgang. The idea is to take things IN context rather than out of them. For instance, my advice to you would be to not read just that one sentance, but to read the whole article or page in which the sentance is found.

"Wolfgang has no brain"

...means something entirely different than...

"Wolfgang has no brain samples from monkeys in his lab"