"Defenseless" Women and Children or Unarmed Noncombatants

I was listening to talk radio last night in the car and when I turned on the radio, the host and the caller were talking about Marines killing 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq in November, 2005.

The caller lamented the fact that "defenseless women and children" were among those killed, specifically mentioning a three year old who allegedly got a "bullet between the eyes".

While I agree with the basic sentiment that killing unarmed civilians is wrong, particularly young children, I don't agree with dividing the civilians into two groups, "adult men of all ages" and "women and children". If I were to divide them, it would be "fit adults" and "disabled adults and children".

It assumes that unarmed male civilians, no matter how old, are still capable of defending themselves against armed soldiers, thus minimizes the wrongness of killing them. It also assumes that adult women, no matter how fit, are as defenseless as young children in any situation.

Indeed, many of the American troops in Iraq are women who are anything but "defenseless" or have anything in common with three year olds when it comes to defending themselves. Similarly, for the last 30 years, American women have been protecting and defending the public on the streets as fully certified police officers.

When I was at the police academy, they told us one of the biggest mistakes an officer could make was to underestimate any opponent and write them off as defenseless.

Why could not the caller have said it was wrong of the Marines to kill all 24 unarmed civilian noncombatants and left it at that?

Thoughts?