President Obama: Do you really love America?

[Jacob(smooth)]

Just to be clear, are we counting drone bombings as terrorist attacks?

Well, of course they count. How could there be any reasonable ques--

*What's that, sir? Oh, they're our drones? Ours. The U.S., right? Ok, roger that.*

No, drone bombings are definitely not a form of terrorist attack. How could you be so feeble-minded as to wonder if they could be. I'll bet you're a Muslim.

Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot. Those are not bombings, they're freedom rockets!

Isn't it interesting how we make semantic demarcations between types of killing. Terrorism morally wrong, collateral damage, morally acceptable. Like it matters to the people on the sharp end. "Oh, you're terrified by the bombs landing around you and killing and maiming your kids? That sure sucks for you, but it's not terrorism because we were AIMING for that guy with an rpg.

[DeistPaladin]

Isn't it interesting how we make semantic demarcations between types of killing. Terrorism morally wrong, collateral damage, morally acceptable.

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.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Is it though? Why is intentional killing civilians to cause fear worse than taking an action you know will kill civilians to serve some other end?

Thought experiment. An enemy combatant sits in a school. I bomb the school with the intention of killing the terrorist, incidentally killing 50 innocent kids. Is that more moral than deliberately killing the kids to make the terrorist too scared to attack me?

[Faith No More]

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.

I'd say callous disregard for those "unintended" casualties is just as bad, and our use of drones and the level of uncertainty with which we fire their rockets fall into that category. There was an interview on the daily show with a guy from Pakistan that says the average Pakistani with no ties to extremism whatsoever lives in total fear of drone strikes, because we're so concerned about getting the bad guy that we don't care enough to gather enough information to justify using rockets.

It's like Chuck said, we re-label terrorism when its terrorism that suits our needs.

[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.

[remagination]

Is it though? Why is intentional killing civilians to cause fear worse than taking an action you know will kill civilians to serve some other end?

Thought experiment. An enemy combatant sits in a school. I bomb the school with the intention of killing the terrorist, incidentally killing 50 innocent kids. Is that more moral than deliberately killing the kids to make the terrorist too scared to attack me?

The thing is this --- if it's a terrorist that you know will kill 500 civilians if you don't kill him first then IMHO you can't just wash your hands of the deaths of the 500 because you didn't do it yourself. I believe we are responsible for our deliberate inactions as well as our actions. By threatening to kill 500 and using another 50 as human shields, it is the terrorist, not you, who prevented the situation from being resolved without civilian casualties.

I think, at the heart of this disagreement, is the question of how we with actions against inactions.

If I agreed with the moral premise that killing by action is wrong yet kling by inaction is A-okay (or even bad, but not at the same level as killing by action) then I would agree with the conclusion that carrying out the raid is wrong. But I don't. If you are in the position to act and know what the results of not doing so will be but choose not to act, I believe you are, if not just as responsible as if you did an action to cause such an effect, at least you are very *close* to it. So for me it is a question of -- carry out the raid and kill 50 innocent civilians - or sit it out and kill 500.

[Anomalocaris]

Isn't it interesting how we make semantic demarcations between types of killing. Terrorism morally wrong, collateral damage, morally acceptable.

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.

That is an impracticable theory.

Intent is not such a key to any practical moral analysis because 1. intent is subject to interested interpretation as well as outright dissemination, and 2. The difference between objective outcome and supposed intent can not be trivially dismissed.

What the britain and us did in WWII was to FREQUENTLY deliberately set scale of bombing at such size as to cause supposedly unintended casualty IN THE NAME of harming some relatively trivial military target because the scope of the casualty, as well as the fear and demoralization such casualties is believed to generate, are believes to have greater war winning effect than destruction of the trivial target in question.

In fact, the U.S. was so open about it that it dropped leaflets over Japan urging japanese civilian to fear death in American bombings, and go as far as listing names of cities already destroyed in those leaflets, and suggesting japanese civilians reading these leaflets to contact any survivors from these cities, in order to prove such fears of dying in American bombings are well founded.


In the final analysis, what we choose to consider unacceptable terrorism seems largely governed by the fact that we wish to be able to fully, freely and guiltlessly leverage our massive proponderance is conventional military power and reach, our overwhelming wealth, out global connections amongst nation states, and our considerable power to shape perception and opinion to achieve our ends without being inconvenienced in any way by those with very limited means who do not share our goals trying to thwart us with what whatever means available to them.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Our bombing of Japan was terror-bombing, and probably illegal, insofar as such niceties matter in total war. Over Germany, a stronger case could be made for our "moral" approach to warfare, although even there US bombers had orders to not return to base with bombs. Each bomber attack was given this targeting priority: 1) main objective 2) secondary objective, in the event that weather precluded attacking the first and 3) targets of opportunity, including cities.

I don't think of it as terrorism in the contextual sense: the fact that there was a general war on meant that both sides were going to commit atrocities -- and both sides did. It's a semantic distinction, and definitely unsatisfying. Terrorism in the sense we use today does not denote the types of atrocities we committed in WWII; but these attacks, be they WTC or Hiroshima, satisfy the definition of terrorism: "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims".

To the person on the ground, such distinctions are obviously ones which can only be made by some asshole drinking his coffee at his kitchen table, typing merrily away.

[DeistPaladin]

That is an impracticable theory.

Intent is not such a key to any practical moral analysis because 1. intent is subject to interested interpretation as well as outright dissemination, and 2. The difference between objective outcome and supposed intent can not be trivially dismissed.

How does this work? One man accidentally kills someone. Another man commits pre-meditated murder. Are they morally equivalent since the objective outcome is the same (someone is dead)?

Let's say the first man was driving while drunk when he killed someone accidentally. In that case, he has moral responsibility for his actions but would you still say he's a moral equivalent to a pre-meditated murderer since the objective outcome is the same? Is negligent manslaughter the same morally in your mind as pre-meditated murder?

In my often cited example in morality discussions, Dr. Miles Benet Dyson is working on a breakthrough in AI. He has no idea his invention will be used to create an army of killer robots that will start a nuclear war. The objective outcome would be the same as if he worked on the AI project intending to create an army of killer robots, no? So are you still insisting that intent is not so key to moral analysis?

Intent is key to discussion of the morality of actions.

---

Is it though? Why is intentional killing civilians to cause fear worse than taking an action you know will kill civilians to serve some other end?

Deliberate pre-meditated murder is not morally equivalent to manslaughter, even if the manslaughter was done under extreme negligence.

Thought experiment. An enemy combatant sits in a school. I bomb the school with the intention of killing the terrorist, incidentally killing 50 innocent kids. Is that more moral than deliberately killing the kids to make the terrorist too scared to attack me?

More information please. Is the terrorist armed with a nuclear weapon intent on causing many more deaths and this may be our only opportunity to kill him?

---

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

Bull.

Setting out to murder is not the same thing morally as accidentally killing an innocent bystander. A police officer that is apprehending a violent killer that accidentally shoots a nearby citizen by mistake is not the equivalent morally to the violent killer.

Note the nice euphemism: Collateral damage. Note that it dehumanizes the victims, which in itself is intent.

Not necessarily. It underscores that there was no intention to kill the innocent civilians. Unintended civilian casualties in war are not morally equivalent to setting out to murder civilians.

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.

Are we discussing the practicality of a policy or the morality of it? In my police officer analogy, I'm sure the loved ones of the mistakenly shot bystander will be very angry about it. They may file charges of "negligence". They may feel more could have been done to avoid the tragic loss. For the sake of argument, we could even say there WAS negligence involved in the mistaken shooting. This makes the police officer morally equivalent to the serial killer in what way?

[Anomalocaris]

That is an impracticable theory.

Intent is not such a key to any practical moral analysis because 1. intent is subject to interested interpretation as well as outright dissemination, and 2. The difference between objective outcome and supposed intent can not be trivially dismissed.

How does this work? One man accidentally kills someone. Another man commits pre-meditated murder. Are they morally equivalent since the objective outcome is the same (someone is dead)?

It is hard to say they are not morally equivalent when the men who supposedly accidentally killed someone both benefits from the killing, and can not but have known the killing was a highly probable result when he undertook the lethal action nominally for a different purpose.

It is implausible that in cases where a country waging war nominally attacked many military targets and incurred many civilian causalties, it could have continuously failed to predict the civilian casualties had resulted. It is not an accident when civilian casualties can be predicted.

The question then becomes can you disinterestedly believe the country's stated intention that it did not seek to benefit in any way from civilian casualties which it had incurred and which must have been predicted, when such civilians casualties can plausibly advance the country's war aims as much as, or more than, destruction of the military targets in question.