Whenever the missiles are about to start flying, everybody suddenly cares deeply for the people we are about to bomb, and it is, in fact, callous to NOT want to bomb them, and then a few days later, if the missiles stop flying, everyone stops caring again. It's almost as if... call me crazy... the entire point is just to kill people.
And, yes, we've been killing people nonstop in that general vicinity for years, but actually going to war against a state ratchets things up a bit.