Derrick Jackson: Allies kill innocents, too

Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe proposes that there is a "tragic hollowness" in the Western concern for the dead in London, attacking the "posturing of America as the great innocent, when everyone knows we kill innocents ourselves". In reading the article, I think I may have missed the writer's point. Mr. Jackson may have intended to argue that we shouldn't downplay the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. That's a fair point to be made, but the column doesn't really make it. Jackson comes across as trying to establish some sort of moral equivalency between Zarqawi and Bush, owing to the fact that both have caused the death of innocent civilians. Jackson seems to be missing an important point: Zarqawi and his friends work hard to kill as many innocent civilians as possible, while the I have every reason to believe that the U.S. and its allies work hard to kill as few as possible. This distinction appears to be lost on Mr. Jackson.

There's no doubt that we should remember all the lives tragically cut short by this action, but there's also nothing whatsoever hollow about our sadness for the loss of our brothers and sisters in London.