More Neocon Moral Reasoning

The other day I happened to catch part of a TV interview with Condoleeza Rice. She insisted that terrorists were different from the US government because terrorists deliberately targeted civilians while the US government killed civilians only as "collateral damage". It seems that the key distinction in Condi's mind is the intent of the killer. The terrorist intends to kill his civilian victims, while the US government killer intends to kill someone else and incidentally kills civilians about whom he is utterly indifferent in the process. The government killer knows that he will kill the civilians through his intentional act, but in Condi's mind that doesn't constitute the same "intent" as the terrorist has.

Imagine you are Condi Rice. You fire a missile at a house full of civilians and kill them. You are a terrorist. Now suppose that there is an Al Qaeda target in the house along with all those same civilians. You fire a missile at the house and kill everyone in it. You are a heroic government servant. See the difference? In the first case Condi was out to get those civilians. In the second case, she didn't give them a second thought. In the first case, the civilians are human, but in the second they are no more significant than inanimate obstacles.

Now that Condi has explained it, I should feel better about those government killers' mowing down civilians. But I don't.