President Obama: Do you really love America?

[abaris]

Intent is key to an analysis of morality. Unintended casualties in war is deeply unfortunate. Deliberately setting out to kill civilians just for the sake of stoking fear is evil.

Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich - Peter Ustinov

I had this as a sig on Fearbush, when the Iraq war was brewing hot and I had it up to my ears with all the apologetic semantics. Because that's all it is.

Note the nice euphemism: Collateral damage. Note that it dehumanizes the victims, which in itself is intent. It's made so that the public won't be tempted to give them a face or a name. Note that - regardless of intent - civilian casualties aren't collaterals for their loved ones and it's a natural urge to hate those inflicting the damage. It was so with the carpet bombings and it's the same with Drone strikes. If you kill granny, your intent is secondary. Someone will care and not in a good way for the ones having dropped the bomb.