Collateral damage is a general term for deaths, injuries, or other damage inflicted on an unintended target. In American military terminology, it is used for the incidental killing or wounding of non-combatants or damage to non-combatant property during an attack on a legitimate military target.
Critics of the term see it as a euphemism that de-humanizes non-combatants killed or injured during combat, used to reduce the perception of culpability of military leadership in failing to prevent non-combatant casualties.
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