Your definitions:
<"serial killer", a term normally reserved for human predators who seek to slay innocent and defenseless civilians (usually women and children)>
<A soldier is trained to hunt and kill specific personnel, enemy soldiers. He is not trained to kill, nor generally finds any "honor or glory" in killing, defenseless civilians.>
Freeman Dyson killed:
1. innocents (total, for Bomber Command, in the millions),
2. defenseless (we had total control of the air, for most of the war),
3. civilians.
4. lots of women and children.
5. Did he kill "specific personnel"?
6. How "specific" was he, dropping dumb bombs from 10,000 feet on urban areas?
7. What ratio of "enemy soldiers" to "civilians" were killed by saturation bombing of cities? 100 to 1? 1000 to 1?
Are you arguing that Japanese women and children civilians were legitimate military targets in their homes, because they aided the war effort by their house-work? If so, then don't most American civilian women support our current war effort, and help pay taxes that buy bombs, so they too are legitimate targets for Al Queda? What's the difference?
Are you arguing that, because Freeman Dyson was in uniform and following orders, anything he did (anything at all?) was the act of a soldier, not a serial killer? If that is your (new) definition, then, clearly, the Al Queda who flew their plane into the Pentagon were following orders, were part of a chain of command. They represented their nation, with great bravery and self-discipline.
Is there no Higher Standard, than Following Orders? So, for instance, the soldier at the My Lai massacre, who disobeyed Calley's orders to turn automatic weapons on lines of children standing in ditches, what is he? A traitor? A mutineer?
I can't see any daylight, between what you think, and this:
Answering a question about a poem he had written in praise of female suicide bomber Ayat Al-Akhras:
"I wrote this poem for two reasons that affected me psychologically. First, I saw her talking in the video broadcast on television. It was obvious that she was a woman who wanted only to die as a martyr and defend her homeland. She was young, 17, and I imagined her to be my daughter. I felt that she was a girl whom despair, frustration, and rage had brought to a point where she was willing to kill herself for her homeland."
"Second, some time after her martyrdom, the American president George Bush said that all Arabs should call the perpetrators of suicide operations - and I, by the way, object to this term because these are martyrdom operations - criminals and murderers. I said to myself: the humiliation in which we live is bad enough, but maybe the day has come when they impose on us not only what to do but also what to say. Will the man influenced by Israel [referring to President Bush] determine who is a Muslim martyr and who is a Muslim criminal? I had no choice but to take a stand on this issue. I could have written an article, but emotion has found expression in my poem. I knew that the poem would spark debate, but sometimes a man must take a stand."
- Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, Saudi ambassador to London
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