• Murder in the name of "safety" is how some people think the world should "roll". I happen to disagree but my opinion counts for next to nothing.
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rrheard-- as for that, who can say? Know, at least, that you've got a lot of company.

For better or worse, I probably could write a book entitled, "Everything I Need to Know in Life, I've Learned from 'Lord of the Rings'".

Your comment reminds me very much of one of my perpetually favorite passages; it also applies to the issue of capital punishment, BTW. If you know the book or film version, pardon the superfluous setup.

Gandalf, a quasi-supernatural wizard with great power, insight, and virtue is responding to small, innocuous, sheltered hobbit Frodo's shock and fright upon learning that a dangerous, violent, amoral critter is on the loose and looking to retrieve the very Ring in the timid hobbit's possession.

One only need substitute "a terrorist" for "as bad as an Orc" in the original.

Frodo: But at any rate, he is [a terrorist], and deserves death!

Gandalf: Deserves death? I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the Wise cannot see all ends.

• The Narrative-- if I'm picking up what you're putting down, it's that attempting to analyze "terrorism" with a view of reducing it to an abstract legal definition, ergo a tool or component of jurisprudence not unlike rebar in concrete molds, is both futile and wrong-headed.

Sort of like the committee of blind persons defining an elephant. Or capturing and taming "obscenity" and harnessing it to the mighty wagon of Law. Intriguing!

As you may have ascertained by now, I was foolish enough to jump in on a conversation between A and B, and was effectively told to C my way out of it. Serves me right, I spoze.

An ill-advised good deed never goes unpunished.

Perhaps LondonLad is deliberately demonstrating the combat-firefight mindset of blasting away point-blank until all the clips are used up, and sifting through the bits afterwards. It's occasionally a compelling object lesson.

That said, my reference to at least one Highway of Death may help to establish that once your modern high-tech military rolls into action, it does so with the same righteous gonzo abandon LL employs. My presumption is that parsimoniousness is, as the Gorgon Pelosi might say, "off the table".

It's more of a Hulk Smash! deal.

I didn't track LL's comments back to see whether he specified during which invasion of Iraq the "clearing" of the highway occurred.

But it might well be the "Highway of Death" reported during the "good" Gulf War, referenced in the Wikipedia article linked @ sig.

Naturally, "coalition" forces pretended that only The Enemy was being neutralized, along with the usual regrettable but inevitable Collateral Damage.