Euphemism that is now a part of our language. It was used by the US military during the second Persian Gulf War from August 2, 1990 through March 3, 1991, as lingo to categorize civilian deaths caused by the Allied forces bombings. It was widely disliked as an example of insensitive double-speak based on an underlying callous perception of an assumption that a killing called by another name is not a killing. It gained amazing notoriety when the US terrorist Timothy McVeigh used it to brush aside the deaths of 19 young children by his bomb. On April 19, 1995 in Oklahoma City 149 adults were also murdered. In common usage, occurring or following an event, accident or failure, it categorizes unexpected, unintentional, and/or unavoidable losses.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
