SASLess - I think that you might have missed the point. You said:
Not shooting someone who is emplacing an IED in plain sight....is flat assed stupid....would you not agree?
The idea is to kill those who are trying to kill you.... before they score is it not?
In answer to the first question - why would you want to kill this person. Are you 100% certain that he is digging an IED not a drain? if you are 100% certain (really?) why do you need to kill him? Is he digging IEDs because the enemy have his family at home? Why not get ISR to follow him and arrest him? If we kill someone, their extended family will hate us for generations - is that a measure of success?
On your second question - No. The idea is to create sufficient security to enable Governance to develop across the country. We won't win this war by killing Taliban - we may have to kill some Taliban on route (and that's OK) but it would be better if we kept the number to the absolute minimum. It would also be better to let 10 Taliban live than to kill one innocent civilian.