Would it be so hard for the U.S. government to at least show a bit of remorse regarding the fact the US killed innocent men in women in an airstrike in Pakistan.

Last I checked we were not at war with Pakistan. Not that war excuses civilian death in my opinion anyway. Many, many innocent civilians have died in what at best is a questionable war in Iraq.

I understand the US government has a duty to protect US citizens over that of other nationalities. But, can we really morally place a higher value on US lives?

Even if you for some reason experience no moral outrage or even sadness at the wanton disregard for life (non u.s. citizen life that is) we should be worried about the growing anti-US sentiment this fuels. Even if the strike did kill high ups in al-Qaida things like this actually make us more at risk to terror. The high ups will be replaced, and with the swelling ranks of recruits fueled by on by acts and attitudes such as this, they will be easily replaced from thousands willing to die to feat the enemy -- the U.S.

Derrick Jackson's is the only article I have seen on this subject. I am guessing (hoping!?) there were others. Not living in the US I am out of touch with popular sentiment. Is there no protest? Does everyone feel OK with what is going on?

Derrick Z. Jackson: Remorseless support
The Boston Globe
THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2006

BOSTON When teenagers show no remorse for mistakes, we call in the therapist. When killers show no remorse, we want life sentences or death row. When the United States makes deadly mistakes, remorse is unnecessary, because, of course, it is never our fault.

Thinking we could nail Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, our military launched an airstrike into a Pakistani town just over the border from Afghanistan. We smoked 18 people at a dinner that al-Zawahri was allegedly going to attend, but apparently skipped out on. The provincial government claims that four or five foreign militants were killed, but local witnesses said women and children were among the rest.

This is of small concern to the White House. President George W. Bush has never apologized to the Iraqi people for the three years of carnage done in the name of weapons of mass destruction, weapons that were never found. Bush always dodges the need to show remorse on the premise that "we are up against people who show no shame, no remorse, no hint of humanity."

He long ago maneuvered the self-absorbed American psyche to ignore our own inhumanity. Our bombs and bullets have now killed several times more innocents in Iraq than were killed during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But the rationale for a remorseless occupation continues to be, as one senior White House official told me and a small group of journalists in November of 2003, "There will be some civilian deaths. It will be nothing like what Saddam Hussein did."

With three years of denial, the reaction to the latest mistake in Pakistan was predictably without feeling. Asked Tuesday if regrets were forthcoming, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to talk about the incident, saying only, "I think you've heard our comments about matters of that nature in the past. If I have anything additional to add, I will." All McClellan said was, "Al Qaeda continues to seek to do harm to the American people."

On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brushed off the airstrike by saying, "The biggest threat to Pakistan, of course, is what Al Qaeda has done in trying to radicalize the country. ... These are not people who can be dealt with lightly."

Last weekend's political talk shows had influential senators, both Republican and Democrat, issuing remorseless support of the mistake. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, a Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, basically blamed Pakistan for the mistake. "It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" he said. "It's like the wild, wild west out there ... the real problem here is that the Pakistani government does not control that part of their own country."

Mississippi Republican Trent Lott, who is on the intelligence committee despite a career of unintelligent comments on race and sexual orientation, justified the strike and targeted assassinations by saying, "There's no question that they're still causing the death of millions of - or thousands of innocent people and directing operations in Iraq." Bayh seconded that by saying to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I agree wholeheartedly, Wolf. These people killed 3,000 Americans. They have to be brought to justice."

But no one should dare attempt to bring America to justice. Senator John McCain of Arizona played the game on CBS's "Face the Nation" of issuing an apology and then immediately qualifying it. At one juncture, he said, "It's terrible when innocent people are killed. We regret that. But we have to do what is necessary to take out Al Qaeda, particularly the top operatives."

At another juncture, McCain said, "We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again."

The equivocation guarantees that it will happen again and again. The world is our wild west. When we miss the villain at high noon and the bullets fly past the saloon to kill mothers and children, we still flip the barrel to our lips, blow a triumphant puff, twirl the gun back into the holster and say, "Darn sheriff should'a told everyone to stay inside."

McCain said, "This war on terror has no boundaries. Clearly Al Qaeda does not respect those boundaries, but I don't want to equate our behavior with theirs."

The airstrike in Pakistan reaffirms how our behavior is plummeting in the direction of the evil we proclaim to fight. At home, we are appalled by drive-by shootings that take out innocent children. Abroad, the fly-by airstrike is the source of no remorse, with dead children and mothers taken very lightly.

(Derrick Z. Jackson's column appears regularly in The Boston Globe.)

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