Dead civilians and the language of war

Finally it comes down to this: Some people are expendable.

In certain parts of the world -- where we and our allies are waging war -- the expendable people come in two categories: terrorists (good riddance!) and civilians, whom we only kill if and when necessary, and whose deaths often elicit official apologies (if there's no way to deny it was our fault).

Indeed, as Secretary of Defense James Mattis said, according to the Daily Beast, "There has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties."

We care -- and Trump has famously unshackled the military so that, as Mattis put it, "we can annihilate ISIS" (or as Trump put it, "bomb the s--t" out of ISIS).