The Kill Chain We Chose: A Requiem for the Innocents Lost

By Joseph Carvalko | 27 March 2026
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

In hours of Operation Epic Fury, the decisions that ended the lives of 175 to 180 people at Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School—most of them girls still learning their multiplication tables—did not originate in a machine. Some are calling it an “AI failure.” That’s a convenient fiction. Tools do not choose targets. People do.

Responsibility begins at the U.S. President’s Resolute Desk and runs, unbroken, through every link of the political chain of command. In this case it inevitably passes through the Secretary of Defense and the deliberate choice to compress the time to assemble “the kill chain,”stripping away the safeguards meant to prevent exactly this kind of catastrophe. Those charged with sober deliberation abandoned both their legal duty (this may be a war crime) and their moral burden. Instead of relying on verified intelligence, they turned to a system engineered to spit out a thousand targeting decisions an hour—an acceleration that served expedience, not judgment.

This followed the unilateral decision of one man, President Trump, to start a war, the first unmistakable sign that recklessness would not be an accident but a governing principle. What came next was not the tragic byproduct of complexity; it was the predictable outcome of haste, hubris, and the abdication of human responsibility. It is no different in essence from a man with no understanding of the weapon in his hands firing blindly into a crowd.

To call this an “AI problem” permits Trump and his minions to bambozzle his MAGA followers into excusing yet another moral failure in this administration’s long list of immorality that will haunt us for years to come.

For what it’s worth, neither history nor the better angels of the American conscience, which unfortunately does not include most MAGA, is likely to let our dear leader off the hook. And as Americans-all to atone for the killing of innocent children.

Joseph Carvalko is an American lawyer, who for over four decades has represented numerous organizations and individuals, from billionaires to indigents. He has been actively engaged in organizations such as Amnesty International, as its Legislative Coordinator for the State of New Mexico; the Sioux City American Indian Center, board member/activist; and Chairman, Technology and Ethics Working Research Group, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Quinnipiac University, School of Law, teaching Law, Science and Technology. He has also worked as a technologist, where he’s been awarded 18 patents in various fields. Carvalko has authored over twelve books which include novels, poetry, law, science and the humanities. His articles appear regularly in a variety of publications and blogs. He lives on the U.S. east coast and in the New Mexico mountains.

Joe Carvalko on the Intersection of Law, Science, and Technology

‘Operation Epic Fury’ Update: 10,000 targets struck inside Iran, CENTCOM says

10,000 Targets Hit: The Fall of Iran’s Military

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here