On Oct. 3, the United States bombed a trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 12 doctors from the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders and 10 patients, while 33 remain missing. On Oct. 6, Gen. John Campbell, commander of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, testified in the Senate that the bombing was an accident and that it came from within the U.S. chain of command. The details of that night have not yet fully come to be known. But as an international investigation begins, it will be important for the United States to cooperate in the investigation and recognize the victims as more than “collateral damage.”

Fourteen years ago, in response to 9/11 and events in the Saudi Peninsula and Africa, this nation declared that attacks against innocents would not be tolerated. Since then we have been perpetually at war as a result. The brave men and women of our armed forces have and continue to give their lives to defend this country and prevent further innocent lives from being lost. In our efforts, though, countless foreign non-combatants have died in zones of U.S. armed operations, all of whom are equally as innocent as American non-combatants.

When I say that countless have died, I really do mean countless. We have no idea of the extent of non-combatant deaths in our conflict zones. All we have are estimates from organizations dedicated to piecing that information together: Perhaps 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq, 26,000 in Afghanistan, 21,500 in Pakistan, and so on in smaller conflicts. The numbers will never be clear. And unlike the memorials we see for our own dead, who are precisely tallied and displayed, the only memorials that an American might see to non-American innocents lost in the War on Terror are online databases compiled from hospital records and combat reports. A short time scrolling through the 637 page list of violent civilian death incidents published by iraqbodycount.org gives an impression of the vast scale of the suffering the Iraqi population has been subjected to during the occupation. As a nation that stands against terror and grieves the loss of civilian lives, we should recognize all civilians who have died in wars that they did not start or further. The deaths of so many civilians have huge implications on the stability of the region and U.S. involvement. We should do more than call them “collateral damage” and pay a few thousand dollars to their families as a condolence.

They were people, and their nations needed them to help rebuild themselves. My own family knows the meaning and pain of “collateral damage” and the impact of war to the civilian. During the allied push into Northern Italy in 1944, my grandmother’s aunt was killed by an American bombing raid in Reggio Emilia while walking into a hospital to donate blood to other victims of Allied bombing. She and all other civilians who have died in wars have been robbed of their lives and their chance to better the world by the belligerent factions who fight. All sides who fight in a war share some responsibility for the accidents that kill civilians occurring during the course of that conflict. Even if today we are fighting some enemies who do not take responsibility for their share of innocents killed and if we seek to be more moral than our enemies, we must recognize incidents like the one in Kunduz as more than a standard, expected result of our military efforts. The United States needs to foster better relations with countries we conduct combat in and leave them better than they were before we intervened.

It is concerning that today, groups like the Taliban and the Islamic State are more powerful than ever. As of this year, President Obama and former English Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted in interviews that such groups’ growth are a consequence of our invasions. At President Obama’s announcement this month that the war in Afghanistan will stretch on into 2017 and our first combat death in Iraq since 2011, it is imperative our policies change to avoid more civilian deaths. Recognizing the blood that has already been spilled is a step towards peace in the region.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Mike Johnson at [email protected].