It seems only reasonable and self evident to me that one should never take what cannot be given back. Life is just about the only thing we cannot give back once it is taken. That is why, to me, real physical aggression is not acceptable behavior on the part of our leaders and civil servants -- or anyone else for that matter. No matter how worthy the cause, no one, whether innocent civilian or soldier, should loose a life even accidentally to aggression for the sake of the quality of life of those who survive.
"Collateral damage" is just a euphemism for families getting to see their loved ones blown apart. We can't wash war, death, and destruction clean by calling them something else -- and to state up front that accidental loss of life is inevitable does not justify war; it makes it even less acceptable.
Other people have said these things over and over, more eloquently than I have, and they have been ignored at best. Some have been shunned, some have even come under Orwellian observation. I don't expect to make any dent in the mob mentality we have fallen into. Still, I must go on record somewhere as believing there must have been a better way, a more civilized way, to free Iraq and to promote freedom and human rights in the rest of the world.
