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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Vengeance Is Also Blind |
Current rating: 0 |
by John O'Connor
Email: johno4495 (nospam) netscape.net (unverified!) |
30 Oct 2001
Modified: 01:03:30 PM |
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Supporting a war of blind vengeance is immoral and unthinking. A response will come in kind if not degree. |
On the morning of October 29th, National Public Radio played an interview with a fireman at ground zero in Manhattan. He said he and all the emergency workers were mad. He said none of them were talking about peace and compassion and love thy neighbor "like Richard Gere was." He said he'd like it if those responsible for helping the terrorists were brought to the scene and given over to the mob justice that would ensue.
I didn't see the Madison Square Garden concert the fireman alluded to. Some one in one of my classes mentioned it. He said Gere was audacious enough to say the bombing should be stopped. Supposedly he was booed of the stage for making this remark. A large percentage of Americans, perhaps the majority, seem to have bought into the notion that our actions in Afghanistan are justified and righteous, collateral damage be damned.
"Collateral damage" is an interesting phrase. It comes from the same literati that gave us "friendly fire." These are the unfortunate inevitabilities of war, they say. They say the other side is responsible for all the deaths anyway because they started the war. By this wonderful moral calculus they absolve themselves of any guilt or responsibility for their actions. If a hundred thousand or millions of Afghans starve or freeze to death in the coming weeks and months, it's Osama's fault. Our hands are tied. Besides, we're dropping a few thousand food packets out in the minefields for them to eat.
This is giving in to a basic, primitive, unthinking, immoral and stupid desire for blind vengeance. I think it's pretty obvious that such behavior is basic and primitive. You see it in baboons and chimpanzees. You see it all levels of human behavior as well. That it's unthinking, immoral and stupid flow from the behavior's basic primitiveness.
It's immoral because it's just plain wrong to support acts that have the very real potential of sentencing thousands and perhaps millions of innocent people to death. Isn't that what we're upset with the Taliban for doing?
It was certainly wrong and immoral for the group of terrorists to do what they did on September 11th. They wanted to both destroy symbols of American might and kill as many people in the process as possible. No doubt they were disappointed the number of casualties was not far higher. What we're doing is also certainly wrong and immoral. The attacks in Afghanistan are largely symbolic. The Taliban's military apparatus was never a threat to us and Al Queada is spread out in many countries. If we wanted to bomb every country that harbors them, we'd have to reinstate the draft just to get enough military personnel to carry out the attacks. Not to mention that it would be a hard sell to get general approval for bombing Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Britain and Florida, among others.
While I don't think our elite are too morally or ethically concerned with the potential holocaust we are engendering, I don't think they specifically intended it. If only for PR reasons. Mass civilian casualties were one of the major motivations of the terrorists. For us it's just a side effect, collateral killing. It's a difference, but only one of degree. Something like reckless homicide versus premeditated murder. Maybe not even so separated. The dead will still be dead as a result of actions we do not have to take.
Not only do we not have to take these actions, we absolutely should not take them. This little war of ours is stupid aside from its brutishness and immorality. It will do very, very little to reduce the motivation or capabilities of people who already want to commit acts similar to those of September 11th. Our attack will, however, motivate unknowable numbers of others to take up the belief that America and the West are evil and need to be taught a lesson, civilian casualties be damned. Our bombs are manufacturing new terrorists, not eradicating existing ones. Yes, violence begets violence. I've heard this phrase mouthed with mocking contempt by jarheads and gung ho warmongers but it remains, as ever, true. Have no doubt, our acts will be answered in kind if not degree.
But this is not really counter to elite goals or operating procedure. In this it's not stupid, just tremendously callous. What's stupid is the rest of us signing up to be bullet catchers so Amaco and General Dynamics can keep their profits up. This War on Terrorism neatly fills Colin Powell's enemies gap. With the Cold War ancient history, we can now cast as our national enemy anyone we simply label a terrorist or even their willing or unwilling hosts, supporters or neighbors. We can keep up and increase our national corporate welfare system for the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about. We can even add the communications and information industries to the welfare rolls. There's a lot of money to be made in wartime.
This war is the answer to bin Laden's prayers. We are acting in exactly the colors he's been painting us in. It's not new behavior for us, but the scale makes it more obvious. More people than ever before are eagerly receptive to his message. The war is also the answer to the prayers of the West's elites. Nothing like a war to keep the rabble in line. Dissent and you tread on thin ice. Speak to the motivation of the terrorists, what drove them to suicidal sociopathy, and you run the risk of being called an apologist, an excuser, maybe even a supporter.
But then what should we do if bombing is wrong? We should stop trying to subvert the formation of an International Criminal Court (ICC). Or at least set up an ad hoc United Nations Tribunal to try the accused. The Taliban offered to hand bin Laden over to a third country for trial. We should have insisted on the ICC or a UN tribunal and presented our evidence. Such a course is not as flashy or primitively satisfying as bombing the hell out of the innocent population of an already destroyed country. But it is right. |
