I love the way this irrational and emotive expression always seems to crop up.
Who, then, are the "guilty"?
If we use the expression "innocent" in this context we must ipso facto acknowledge that there are also "guilty" parties involved. Who are thy? And since when in history was death in conflict ever restricted to these "guilty"? Equally it implies a value judgement in each death, some deserved it, some didn't. What are those values and who sets them? The Daily Mail perhaps? (I guess the DM at least thinks so...)
Does this really mean "combatants"? Are they "guilty"? Of what? Doing what the politicos made them do? What the Generals ordered? Is the Mess Steward, as a non-combatant - "guilty"? Or merely by belonging to one of the nations/tribes/factions/ideologies involved. Its a strange way of defining innocence and guilt.
Are the wife and kids who support and feed Mohammed Taliban innocent or guilty?
What defines these phrases?
We frequently hear about "innocent women and children" despite both being sometimes used as combatants - but never of "innocent men". Why not? It ain't rational, that's for sure. Perhaps its a gender thing?
War is all-consuming and has nothing whatsoever to do with innocence and guilt, just involvement - and that can be a very loose connection in that if you are just present you are at least peripherally involved. Not necessarily actively or willingly, but still involved by mere proximity, even as a distant onlooker or neighbour.