I despise the phrase “collateral damage.” The term was popularized during the Gulf War in 1991, and used to refer to the civilians killed “by accident” by U.S. bombing. It is a newspeak term that seems to have emerged from the dark depths of the military public relations machine.

A simple search on the web produced countless quotes making use of the phrase “collateral damage.”

From the BBC on Oct. 10: “The admiral of the Enterprise battle group said that, to avoid `collateral damage’, the pilots were required to confirm all sites before firing.”

Major General Donald Shepperd (USAF, retired), a CNN military analyst said on Nov. 2: “We are clearly not giving sanctuary to weapons that are parked in populated areas, because we have precision-guided munitions that can take them out with minimal collateral damage.”

On a more disturbing note, last April convicted Oklahoma City bomber described the 19 dead children among his 168 victims as “collateral damage” in an interview. No doubt, Timothy McVeigh’s conviction shows that he was a brutal and callous killer. But maybe his statement shed light on the issue.

What is “collateral damage ?”

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the world “collateral” is defined as “accompanying as secondary or subordinate.” And the word “damage” means “loss or harm resulting from injury to person, property, or reputation.” In other words, it is harm that comes as a secondary or unintended cause. But what does it really mean?

The war establishment would like us to believe that “collateral damage” is the unfortunate but necessary deaths that occur when our military is in the process of killing the bad guys.

Good people too often justify the ends with the means. “War is hell,” they say, “and people are going to die.” Nonsense.

But how can murder and bombing the enemy in war be on the same level? In murder, a person sets out to kill innocent people, intentionally. In “collateral damage” the innocent people are killed as a result of “accidental” deaths. Therefore, terrorism is murder and “collateral damage” is an accident. Right?

Howard Zinn, a respected historian at Boston University, disagrees. Zinn believes that terrorism and war share in the commonality that “both involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the killers believe is a good end.”

Zinn then makes an excellent point. He says that even if we suppose that we are not intending to kill civilians but they become victims over and over, is that still an accident?

A simple comparison of death tolls between terrorism and its violent response reveals an alarming disparity. For example, Zinn estimates that Palestinian militants have killed approximately 1,000 Israeli citizens in various attacks. However, in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Robert Fisk, a well-known British journalist in Lebanon, says that 17,500 people died, mostly noncombatants.

Of course, the invasion of Lebanon was justified by Israel, in part, by claiming the right to defend itself against terrorism. The justification should sound familiar in light of current events. Equally repulsive Palestinian attacks on civilians are justified with similar logic.

We shouldn’t compare death tolls. It is hideous and unfair work when talking about people’s lives. The blood of “collateral damage” victims is as brilliantly red as that of terror victims.

The killing of innocent people – whether with suicide bombs in Israeli malls or American-made F-16s on Palestinian refugee camps, is unexcusable. The military leaders know that when bombs are dropped, they often kill bystanders. How does that excuse military operations?

Terrorism and war achieve the same results, a repetition of the cycle of violence. War is bloody, gruesome, and murderous. So is terrorism.

The next time you hear the phrase “collateral damage” remember the words of George Orwell in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language:”

“Political language – with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”

Orwell knew it years ago. When families are murdered, they die – whether they are poor, rich, brown, white, black, Jewish, Christian, Muslim or anything in between. The terrorists know they will kill innocent people when they detonate bombs. And similarly, military chiefs in comfortable board rooms know that the bombing will kill innocent people too. How is one dismissed as an accident and other called a crime? Both are murder.

Enough with the Orwellian public relations lies. Use “collateral damage” by its true name – murder.

Omar Tesdell is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Slater. He is online editor of the Daily.