"It's not murder, because 'murder' is a legal term!"

[Bonobo]

Of all the responses that I have read defending the "action" on Wikileaks, this is perhaps the most lame.

Let us remember what laws are written for -to try to codify what is and what is not MORALLY acceptable.

Let us remember what we teach our kids -to obey the spirit of the law and not seek refuge in the letter of it.

Let us remember what every religion tells us is the Golden Rule -to not treat others as we would not wish to be treated (or the corollary)

We are what we do and those pilots and gunners may not have intentionally done evil (as some say), but their actions were evil and the mental gymnastics that allow for such evil to be done are as old as civilization I suspect.

Please try to strive for some mental clarity on this -I speak now to those few of you who think it is defensible for whatever reason - if you do not condemn this in the strongest possible terms, you are yourselves part of the evil and are creating evil karma as surely as bees create honey. And no, karma is not a fantasy. It is not "fate". It is the results of your actions. And they WILL come back to you.

[Fumesucker]

1. No, laws are written to codify what is acceptable to the powers that be..

If the powers that be see a certain unjustified taking of human life as acceptable then the killer will not be punished.

What is war after all but violence that is condoned by the political class?

A person can do the exact same act and be either feted as a hero or executed as a criminal depending on whether the political class condoned or condemned the act.

Edited to remove an extra word..

[Bonobo]

2. Well, true. But in principle, in a righteous society, they would be the same thing. nt