False dichotomy. If they occur as unintended side-effects, civilian deaths can under certain circumstances be excusable. It's a matter of scale and ratio of killed combatants to civilians, of the international laws that apply, and whether there is an international mandate for the military intervention. It's also not a matter of "drawing a line in my own head". There is established and ratified international law about these issues and there are signed conventions that prohibit certain practices. There are illegal activities and activities that are permitted or excusable under the rules of war, as codified in various international conventions.

For example, the US is the only country in the world that openly conducts drone strikes on foreign territory for extrajudicial killings of political opponents. Not just in Afghanistan, but also in Yemen and a number of other countries.

To give another example, if a country uses chemical warfare agents against civilians, this is a clear-cut violation of international laws, treaties, and conventions. Moreover, the verdict of experts and international judges does count.

Although there is plenty of room for disagreement and legal procedure, as in any other legally and morally relevant matter, none of these issues are based on "an arbitrary line in my head" at all.

My point was, the line in which you think your contribution to the system is impactful is arbitrary. So for example is paying taxes the line for when you should protest? What about living in the state of California? How about being an employee of Google? Maybe it's being part of the program as a PM? Maybe it's a labeler for the dataset for enemy combatants?

So yes, the line of demarcation between when you feel you are complicit with the "immoral" behavior is arbitrary and not based on any legal basis.

extrajudicial killings of political opponents

It's important to note that this is not true legally. It conflicts with EO 12333 [1] [2]. The targeting process for any airstrike (except in VERY rare cases like Op Neptune) goes through a very complex, legal de-confliction process in close coordination with local governments/militaries and is not done for political purposes. In this sense "political" is a term of art, not a statement about the philosophical position of a potential target.

I think the major problem here is the massive disparity with what the general public thinks they know about airstrikes in general and UAV strikes (aka drone) specifically. The general public has about 1/1000th of the information they need to understand it and how it actually happens in practice. The DoD is largely to blame for not being more explicit about this, but there are real concerns with security/secrecy.

[1] https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execu...

[2] https://www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/cerl/conferences/target...