I would suggest that unless there were undercover moles whose lives would be lost and said lost lives would hamper our surveillance methods (recruitment of moles) then the strike should have gone forward.

Ledger, I am sympathetic to the thrust of your comment concerning hitting the enemy whenever and wherever we are able. But I think you may here have uncovered a vital element that seems to have gone otherwise unnoticed. “The detail and near real time nature of the information which coalition forces now have on al-Qaeda cells inside Pakistan” indicates just the kind of close association you point to. Such a supposition could be supported by the quote from the Long War Journal. “I watched them pass on taking out some bad guys because they were in a compound with other people and there might also be collateral damage to the surrounding structures, possibly causing civilian deaths or injuries,” reports the correspondent. Read carefully, the report seems to indicate the unidentified ‘other’ people sharing the compound with the bad guys were differentiated from civilians housed in “surrounding structures” which might also be damaged.

Perhaps this is only an incidental and unimportant distinction, perhaps not.