So he tells the New York Times. This renders inoperative something I said to Jezebel’s Megan Carpentier this morning. We’ll see how this plays out in practice, but Gen. McChrystal appears to be emphasizing this in a thorough manner:

“Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly,” General McChrystal told a group of his senior officers during a video conference last week. “We can lose this fight.”

“When we shoot into a compound, that should only be for the protection of our forces,” he said. “I want everyone to understand that.”

He didn’t go that far at his confirmation hearing earlier this month, but he said that the mark of progress would be the number of civilians spared from violence.

Crossposted to The Streak.