NATO: "Mental Tests" and Civilian's Casualties

On a recent Unified Protector Press Conference Carmen Romero (NATO Deputy Spokesperson) along with Colonel Roland Lavoie (Spokesperson for the Operation Unified Protector) faced with a difficult and rather unexpected situation whith AP's journalist Slobodan LeKic posed.Slobo in a rather hesitant tone asked them:

"There's been recently criticism of NATO, especially at the United Nations and the UN Security Council members, that NATO has overstepped its mandate because of the fact that in this current situation where the pro-Qadhafi forces are obviously on the defensive, NATO is still striking... mounting air strikes against them, although they're only aiming their fire at the attacking forces, at the attacking rebel forces. They're not endangering or threatening civilians. And that's why several countries have expressed unease with this continuing attack, which they say is biased in the sense that it's helping the rebels and working against the forces which are on the defense. Can you comment on that?"

Colonel Roland Lavoie had just stated in his answer to the previews question that NATO as an organization has no mandate, apart from the mandate given by Resolutions 1970 and 73, "so basically we do the arms embargo, we enforce a No-Fly Zone. We do not... and we facilitate, of course, the arrival of the humanitarian aid. We do not train as NATO any of the belligerents".

Carmen Romero taking the lead stated that the mandate was approved "by all members..." and hastily refrased "by the United Nations Security Council". The fact is that the SC represent only the 7,77% of the 193 member states of the UN while the members that voted for it only the 5,12%. Furthermore she added that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised NATO for its achievements in Libya. But if the role of NATO was to protect civilian's lives how was that Ban Ki-moon has recently voiced alarm over reports of civilians killed in Libya's civil war and called on all sides to do as much as possible to avoid killing innocent people? If that is the key point NATO must admit failure.

Lavoie went on stating that "...when we strike at a tank it's because we have an understanding that this does represent a threat to the local population...". "Every time we engage a target this is the mental test that is in our mind, like is it a target that presents a threat to the civilian population, and if the answer is yes we will engage this threat" he said. This of course neither explain the results of the recent bombing of Majer where 85 people, including 33 children, 32 women and 20 men were killed, nor the reactions of the head of the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO, Irina Bokova, who issued an unusually sharp rebuke of the alliance for its July 30 air strikes against Libyan state television, which she said killed several “media workers.”
Perhaps NATO failed the mental test once more...

If there are still any doubts you can have a look at some of the results of the above mentioned "mental test" here.