Pakistan - A question for the Left

from Kevin Drum.

We now know that we killed some pretty big al Qaeda fish in the latest attack and Kevin has this question for the moaning left.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that we had pretty good intelligence telling us that a bunch of al-Qaeda leaders were in the house we bombed. And let's also assume that we did indeed kill al-Masri and several other major al-Qaeda leaders. Finally, let's assume that the 18 civilians killed in the attack were genuinely innocent bystanders with no connection to terrorists.

Question: Under those assumptions, was the attack justified? I think the answer is pretty plainly yes, but I'd sure like to see the liberal blogosphere discuss it. And for those who answer no, I'm curious: under what circumstances would such an attack be justified?

There's one assumption I would challenge here. The civilians present knew they were harbouring some of the most wanted terrorists on the planet, except for any children if they were there, and therefore cannot be innocent but instead, accomplices.

Now answer the question.
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