What part of the magna carta, don't you understand.
"No freeman shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his
freehold, or his liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or
exiled, or in any manner destroyed, (harmed,) nor will we (the
king) proceed. against him, nor send any one against him, by force
or arms, unless according to (that is, in execution. of) the sentence
of his peers, and (or or, as the case may require) the Common Law
of England,"
Governments have killed nearly a quarter billion of their own citizens in the twintieth century alone. A tyranical government is far more of a danger than a handful of kooks thousands of miles away. Strict adherence to the rule of law and traditional safeguards are the best defense against tyranny.
But back to the issue of lives. The wars and operation to date have cost in the multiple trillions of dollars. How many lives could have been saved had the money been diverted into medical research, or into the revitalization of urban ghettos?
And the U.S does not have the moral high ground here. It provided, aid, arms and training to central and south american terrorist groups, for no better reason to advance some political agenda or another.