collateral damage

I keep reading about how hard it is to change minds, but I've changed my mind about all sorts of things over the years. Usually due to learning new facts and details that lead to a whole other conclusion. One thing I've changed my position on is collateral damage and it's relative ethics in relation to terrorism. I won't go into the weeds of defining terrorism, here I'm only concerned with the distinction of intentionally killing civilians, as opposed to collateral damage, defined as unintentionally killing civilians.

I used to think this was clear cut, and that comparing first degree murder to manslaughter made for a good metaphor. Accidentally killing people isn't anywhere near as bad as doing it on purpose. How can anyone possibly argue otherwise? This often strikes people as outrageous apologetics for terrorism, and sometimes it is. To suggest that all death is the same to the survivors is patently absurd, but where my views have changed has nothing to do with any sort of defense of terrorism - rather, ratcheting up condemnation of collateral damage.

Sam Harris will often make the point that he's well aware that collateral damage is horrible, yet he fails to see how it is precisely the issue of intention that makes it potentially comparable to the worst sorts of terrorism.   He trusts our government institutions and their official stories as to what's going on, whereas I no longer do.  Intention does matter a whole lot, but I no longer believe that collateral damage is necessarily unintentional.  It varies from one situation to the next, but all too often it's more equivalent to depraved indifference than manslaughter.  That's not better than premeditated murder, and in some cases, can be even worse.

Knowing that civilians will die, and dropping bombs anyhow, means that their deaths were actually intentional.  They know their actions will result in casualties and take those actions anyhow.  It doesn't matter that it wasn't their primary motivation.  That's where you have to look at the details, how likely civilians deaths were, whether there were efforts to avoid it, and was hitting their target really worth murdering innocent people over.  Killing ten or twenty people just trying to buy bread, in order to get some bad guy can be pretty damn depraved.  Possibly even worse than anything said bad guy has ever done or will do.

Do we trust that our military is being careful, trying not to get innocent people killed?  Do we even trust that they have good reasons for thinking people are dangerous bad guys that need to be bombed?  Or do we figure they don't care all that much, they do things like this all the time, on purpose, without a whole lot of concern?  Do we question their motives, their reasons for bombing anyone at all?  When you dispense with the conventional assumptions, and realize that they're often more motivated by corporate greed, and indifferent to the death they cause, yes, the US military's actions become just as bad as terrorism.

Harris also makes the argument that intention matters, because it's our best indication of what people will keep trying to do.  If it's an accident, they'll try not to let it happen again.  If it's intentional, they'll keep doing it.  What are the chances more innocent people will die to our bombs in the very near future?  Again, again, and again.

Most people making these arguments have no idea.  The mainstream media doesn't tell us what our military is doing.  Certainly not how many people they've been killing, almost every day.