Media focus on civilian casualties is misguided

Washington Examiner:

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, had just fielded questions from the Pentagon press corps for 45 minutes Tuesday, and he felt it was time to inject a little moral clarity into the conversation.
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"If these innocents were killed by the coalition, it was an unintentional accident of war, and ISIS is slaughtering Iraqis and Syrians on a daily basis," Townsend said. "ISIS is cutting off heads. ISIS is shooting people, throwing people from buildings, burning them alive in cages and they are making the video record to prove it. This has gotta stop. This evil has gotta be stamped out. And in my mind any responsibility for any civilian deaths, the moral responsibility for civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria belongs to ISIS."

"I'll close with that," he said.

Townsend had spent his entire briefing trying to paint a picture for the media about the complexites of urban combat in west Mosul, which he described as an "urban canyon, very dense, claustrophobically-close terrain, with streets so narrow that tanks can't accompany the troops in the attack."

It was this kind of situation, Townsend implied, that Iraqi troops faced March 17, taking fire from heavy weapons in a building and facing a massive truck bomb that could take out their position on a Mosul street in one horrific instant.
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Indeed, the Iraqis have said that ISIS has been booby-trapping buildings with the civilians in them and exploding them as the Iraqi troops approach.

I suspect the media is focused on the civilian casualties now because they want to blame them on Trump while they ignored them under Obama.  Or, perhaps they really are that ignorant of urban warfare dealing with a terrorist enemy.