Lincoln/Coverdale

Andrew Sullivan has been exploring in depth the Obama/Wright controversy for the past several days. He’s done a good job finding context for many aspects of this drama. In the video Sullivan links to, Wright “clearly equates the death of innocents in American warfare with the deaths of innocents in 9/11” — a comparison with which he takes issue.

I can see taking issue with this in general. I know that there are conventions for the waging of war between states and that it is not necessarily considered a war crime if innocents die collaterally. I can see how the death of innocents on 9/11 can be considered more unjust than the death of innocents in Afghanistan in the ensuing war. But what about innocents in Iraq versus innocents on 9/11? How does one figure the moral calculus in that situation? I suppose that despite the suspect justification for the war, it weighs in favor of the US that we were not trying to kill innocent people whereas the 19 assholes on 9/11 were trying to do just that. At this point, my mind is trying to form some sort of mathematical expression to summarize some description of life-value, but it kind of makes me feel sick.

Maybe I take issue with the wording of the statement above. When equating these deaths, one can consider the culpability of the killers or the loss of a father/brother/mother/sister/etc. I think Sullivan may be talking about the former because I don’t see how the latter can be any different.