Per-strike ‘lesser evil’ claims cumulatively yield a greater total evil.

Evidence

The second objection concerns the cumulativeness of lesser evils. As Eyal Weizman has commented, “Even according to the terms of an economy of losses and gains, the concept of the lesser evil risks becoming counterproductive: less brutal measures are also those that may be more easily naturalized, accepted and tolerated—and hence more frequently used, with the result that a greater evil may be reached cumulatively.” To claim to have produced fewer civilian victims in each strike reduces the military reputational cost of each one, making it likely that more strikes will take place and thereby increasing the total number of victims. Another way of putting it is to say that the trees of a surgical strike conceal a forest of tombs. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 592

Categorization

• SEED: ‘The trees of a surgical strike conceal a forest of tombs’ is a strong framing line for critique writing.
• XREF: connects to: Lesser-evil arguments make people forget they chose evil; Defeating a great evil can merely disperse it into many smaller persistent ones — , A Year of World Stories, 10132; Private protection is a lesser evil consumed cynically

Related

• Private protection is a lesser evil consumed cynically (similarity 0.93)
• Lesser-evil arguments make people forget they chose evil (similarity 0.89)