Orwell Would Revel in ‘Collateral Damage’, says communications director of the American-Arab
Anti-discrimination Committee:

Timothy McVeigh, who is scheduled to be executed May 16, has solidified his
position as the poster boy of cold-blooded villainy. The Oklahoma City bomber has
once again outraged the American public when he described the 19 dead children
among his 168 victims as “collateral damage” in an interview.

Although it scarcely seemed possible, this appalling comment has made
McVeigh an even more despised figure in American society. It produced
widespread and justified expressions of revulsion and anger at his lack of regard for
even the most innocent of his victims.

There is no doubt that McVeigh is an exceptionally malevolent and brutal
criminal. Yet the rest of us may not be as distant from his propensity to rationalize
the killing of innocents as we prefer to believe. All too often, good people allow
themselves to believe that the end justifies the means, that “war is hell.” Or they
find some other means to dismiss the deaths of those who did nothing to deserve
being killed.

It is worth recalling where McVeigh got this chillingly antiseptic phrase
“collateral damage.” It was coined by the Pentagon during the Gulf War to describe
the deaths of innocent Iraqis during the massive bombing campaign in 1991 and
was an attempt to obscure and rationalize these deaths through Orwellian jargon.
“Collateral damage” during the Gulf War included, in only one instance, 313
people incinerated at the Amiriya bomb shelter in western Baghdad, which was
deliberately attacked.

When asked about the extent of Iraqi casualties toward the end of the Gulf War,
then-military Chief of Staff Colin Powell blandly remarked: “That is really not a
matter I am terribly interested in.” LA Times