What is “collateral damage”?

Question

It is hell on earth

Answer 1

Collateral damage is a U.S. Military term for unintended or incidental damage during a military operation. The term started as a euphemism during the Vietnam War, and can refer to friendly fire or the destruction of civilians and their property.

Traditionally, collateral damage is a result of weapon system malfunction, human error, desperation in the fog of war or because it was intended. In more recent warfare, it occurs when an adversary's strategy includes concealment among the civilian population. Any formal definition of collateral damage must be largely based on perception, condition and tolerance. For example, the tolerance of collateral damage would be very different for an invaded nation in the desperate state of survival compared to a state participating in war for economic gain. Concomitantly, how should collateral damage be measured in the realms of time and physical effect? To conduct successful effects-based operations, this question is critical in determining the relationship between destruction of a particular target set and the effects anticipated on other centers of gravity. As an illustration, several hundred thousand workers in Yugoslavia were unemployed because key private industry sites supporting Serb forces were destroyed in the air campaign. (353) The short-term effect of these attacks may crush military industry and incite a civilian population to urge early termination of a conflict. However, wholesale destruction of entire segments of industry conceivably leads to economic depression and effects traditionally encountered in a post-conflict humanitarian crisis

Answer 2

Bound's hubby here:

Collateral damage is the additional loss of human life or property beyond what is intended with the actual target. The degree of potential collateral damage is typically weighed when determining whether or not a specified military target will be attacked. Acceptable collateral damage is the loss of life or property that a government is willing to allow in order to remove a military target.

Answer 3

Damage you did not intend to inflict (it is in addition to damage you did intend to inflict)

Example

Zarcowi is in a house in Baqubah, Iraq.

A bomb is dropped on the House.

The Death of Zarcowi was intended

Anyone else that died in the house, the house, and anyone around the house that gets hurt is Collateral Damage.

Collateral Damage can be mitigated by attacking at a time with fewer other people around to get hurt. In the case of Zarcowi we attacked before dawn so there would be fewer people around.

Answer 4

Unintended, untargeted damage that occurs as a result of an action. The military and police forces need to use terms that are value-neutral. That doesn't mean they don't care and don't take whatever precautions they can to avoid inflicting damage on unintended targets. But, yes, it's always the most disturbing, but all violence is.

Answer 5

Collateral damage is the injury suffered by another party as an outcome of an act done by others. It was just like in the movies played by Rambo and the Terminator.

Answer 6

Damage around the entended target caused by blast and debris .

Answer 7

military term meaning unintended or accidental damage during a military operation the term started during the vietnam war also known as " friendly fire"

Answer 8

If foreigners do it, its terrorism.

If George Bush does it, its collateral damage.

Answer 9

By Israel 's standards,collateral damage is when they destroy Lebanon to kill Hezbullah fighters or when they kill 20 women and children to hunt one of the Palestinian resistance

Answer 10

Bad luck for innocent men women and children....hell on earth.