Comment Re:What about other people? (Score 1) 278
I don't think you quite understand government mentality around espionage, 'national security', etc.
Casualties are acceptable, if it gets the job done.
And that mentality isn't necessarily wrong, given that you accept the premises they're working under.
Imagine you know that if you don't make it to a place in the next 5 minutes that a man will gun down a room full of schoolchildren. In order to get there, you have to speed and in doing so greatly increase the risk of killing a single innocent pedestrian. Even if that happens, it is a better outcome than the children being gunned down.
Now, that scenario is dramatically oversimplified. Decisions about national security concerns are however made on the same basis. The belief is that the loss of a small number of lives is worth it in order to prevent the loss of a greater number of lives or extreme suffering to a great number of people (one death is better than a million on the edge of starvation; even if no-one dies directly).
I'm not saying I agree with them - I actually don't, because I don't believe that most things they refer to as 'national security' are in fact validly so - but the logic makes sense given that you accept the premises.