. . . particularly when you consider the potential of political collateral damage.* Here’s an interesting one from NYT, mulling why no one gets worked up about Predator hits that actually kill innocent bystanders, as opposed to dunkings that six years ago caused some brief discomfort to three people. It’s a heat of battle vs. helpless captive thing, NYT informs. That and, I’d suggest, the fact of who is giving the orders when those triggers are pulled nowadays. They could never get enough of denouncing collateral damage in the old days. In other deep, abiding mysteries to occupy a few idle Sunday mornin...

. . . particularly when you consider the potential of political collateral damage.* Here’s an interesting one from NYT, mulling why no one gets worked up about Predator hits that actually kill innocent bystanders, as opposed to dunkings that six years ago caused some brief discomfort to three people. It’s a heat of battle vs. helpless captive thing, NYT informs. That and, I’d suggest, the fact of who is giving the orders when those triggers are pulled nowadays. They could never get enough of denouncing collateral damage in the old days. In other deep, abiding mysteries to occupy a few idle Sunday morning hours, we could also gaze deep into our navels and ponder the lack of lefty concern about any number of gross human rights violations by extreme Islamists.

* Needless to say, there is no mention in any of this of who besides the Bush admin was onboard with the enhanced interrogations. The Obama admin may well recognize, beyond the damage that would be done to US intelligence-gathering by prosecuting agents on highly debatable points of law when they acted in accordance with DOJ legal opinions, that it would shine a light on the broad support such measures enjoyed within the political leadership at the time, and that today, while pleasing the extreme anti-war left, could otherwise have negative political repercussions. Here’s Mark Bowden and my own earlier thoughts on the subject.