Yesterday, the Obama administration did something horrifying.

[passiveporcupine]

288. While I agree that it is not the same as direct and imminent self defense,

the fact that self defense is not murder to you, means you do place qualifications on "killing" and there are degrees.

So "killing" that is not what YOU qualify as self-defense, does not rate a degree of difference for you, but for many others it does. And the reason it does, is because it is done to save lives and is no different than hunting down a serial killer and having to "kill" him/her in the process of capturing him/her.

It's kind of like the question of what do you do, if killing someone innocent now, will save many more lives...like the plane that landed in the field instead of hitting it's target on 9/11. If it hit it's target the people on the plane would also die, but many more would die too...so if we were able to shoot it down to save the lives of the "target", would it be better to do that, knowing we are killing everyone aboard?

Thankfully we didn't have to make that decision. The passengers took it into their own hands and killed themselves to save others.

Sometimes that is necessary.

Killing innocents is never a desired outcome, but there is no such thing as "safe" war or "safe" policing or capturing that guarantees that an innocent person might also be killed.

I wish my life were as black and white as yours, but it isn't. Life would be so much simpler. I wish we weren't doing drone strikes. I also wish ISIS (and other terrorist groups) were not killing people all over the world. I guess we could go after them in a full throated war effort, but if we did, many more would die, including innocent civilians. I'm glad I'm not the one making the decisions.