It All Depends On What the Definition Of "Terrorist" Is?

U.S. warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a weekend roadside blast, the military said Monday. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.

Iraqis are killed daily in insurgent attacks, yet retaliatory airstrikes by American forces closely follow attacks in which Americans are killed. Is this intended to make it appear more likely that the Iraq government is "calling the shots" in beating back the resistance, or less likely?

The U.S. military said Monday that coalition forces launched airstrikes Sunday in and around Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing "an estimated 70 terrorists." But an Iraqi doctor who reported 20 people killed -- including six children -- and 25 wounded said all those were civilians. An Iraqi Ministry of Health official also said one child was killed and two women wounded in the airstrikes. Military officials said they had no reports of civilians killed.

We'll leave it to readers, based on those contradictory statements, to judge for themselves how closely Iraqi and American authorities are working.