Some Questions

Below, Lenny writes something that I suspect is widely accepted, even modest compared to the more hysterical responses to the recent airliner attacks (E.g., Thomas Friedman in the NYT: "Does my country really understand that this is World War III? And if this attack was the Pearl Harbor of World War III, it means there is a long, long war ahead." This from the liberal press).


Lenny wrote (presuming, I think, that Bin Laden is somehow guilty): "Would anyone who knows his whereabouts and his contacts, yet chooses not to interfere be innocent?" He also said: "I don't advocate killing every person who falls under one of the categories listed above, though I do advocate killing some of them, imprisoning many of them, and suitably punishing the rest. This would include removing from power the leaders of any country which has aided terrorists. How can we do any less?"


I think the following quesions are basic to this topic:


1. If a foreign state, group or individual committed terrorism on U.S. soil, which I'll define as the deliberate killing of civilians and property destruction without military pretext in order to create widespread fear, and foreign legal process failed to inflict suitable punishment on those responsible, should the U.S. as a matter of principle accept the result? Or does the U.S. have a moral right to use military force to inflict punishment?


2. If the latter, do we believe that the foregoing standard applies to all countries or just countries other than the U.S.?


3. If the United States facilitated or committed terrorism on foreign soil, do we think that punishment should be limited to those directly responsible or should it also be inflicted, as Lenny implied, on those who had the ability but chose to refrain from interfering or hindering such acts?


4. Do we believe that those responsible for U.S. political and military actions are (1) officials only; (2) officials and those with the greatest ability to influence them; or (3) all people with an ability to influence U.S. officials?


5. If (a) the U.S. facilitated or committed terrorism and (b) it's legal process failed to inflict suitable punishment on those responsible, should foreign governments as a matter of principle accept the result or do they have at least the moral right to use military force to inflict punishment?


6. If (a) the U.S. facilitated or committed terrorism, (b) U.S. legal process failed to inflict suitable punishment on those responsible, (c) foreign governments have a moral right to use military force to inflict punishment but (d) such foreign governments had no effective means of inflicting a suitable punishment on the U.S., or if the victims and their sympathizers don't have access to or control over their governnment, should foreign citizens as a matter of principle accept the result or do they have the moral right to inflict suitable punishment in the form of violence against those responsible?


7. If the U.S. committed terrorism and but we nevertheless deny that foreign governments or citizens have a right to invoke violence in response, should we be surprised if they did so? If we should not be surprised, should we be outraged?


8. Are allegations of U.S. complicity and responsibility for terrorism relevant to recent events and worthy of discussion or should discussion be concentrated on whom to punish and how to punish them?


9. If (a) allegations of U.S. complicity and responsibility for terrorism are in fact relevant to recent events and worthy of discussion but (b) are not as a general matter being discussed by officials, pundits and media gadflys, is it better to ask "why not?" or should we concentrate on whom to punish and how to punish them?

These are excellent questions. They amount to asking: should the US respect the rule of law and the sovereignty of nations? Or is it a special case, and if so, why?


I would add another less abstract question: in the light of the terrible shock it has suffered, will the US review the fact that it has allowed fundraising for the IRA to continue more or less openly on its territory? Those funds have been used to buy weapons to kill civilians in the UK by terrorist means.


RFL.

It's them or us. They made this decision.

I'm not sure who "they" are or what "decision" you refer to, but this is yesterday's New York Times description of life in Kabul, the most likely target of U.S. retalliation:


". . . roaming clusters of widows beg in the streets, their palms seemingly frozen in a supplicant pose. Withered men pull overloaded carts, their labor less costly than the price of a donkey. Children play in vast ruins, their limbs sometimes wrenched away by remnant land mines. The national life expectancy, according to the central statistics office, has fallen to 42 for males and 40 for females. The prolonged drought has sent nearly a million Afghans — about 5 percent of the population — on a desperate flight from hunger. Some have gone to other Afghan cities, others across the border. More than one million are ‘at risk of starvation,' according to the United Nations."


From "Taliban Plead for Mercy to the Miserable in a Land of Nothing"


Just what decision did these people make that warrants their incineration?

What greater ability to determine the course of events distinguishes them from the victims of the airliner bombings?

What would distinguish the bombers?

You have fallen into the trap of thinking that all sides start out equal. The U.S. and the West represent the forces of civilization and the terrorist represent the forces of evil.


It's this simple we are the good guys and they are the bad guys.


Does this mean we always do the right thing? Of course not. But in light of this attack the issue is clear civilization or terror.

I neither stated nor implied that there was some "moral equivalence" between the U.S. and those that terrorize U.S. citizens. It's a classic straw man argument: you pretend the other guy claims that the U.S. is no better than the U.S.S.R., Afghanistan, or the PA, and then point to the contrary evidence of civil rights, democratic norms and so forth. Not hard to do that.


I simply think as a general rule that citizens in a democracy should take responsibility for the actions of their government, and that those with a greater ability to influence events for the better have an obligation to do so. I think this is a more important and moral endeavor than villifying citizens of foreign regimes for failing to reign in governments that they often hate more than we do. Disagree?

And who has recommended the carpet bombing of Kabul?


The people of Afganistan are poor? No kidding.


Do you realize that you are in combat with a straw man?


Please, keep your fanciful attributions to yourself.


Or do you seriously recommend doing nothing?

You're living in a fairy tale world created by U.S. and other western world propaganda. The world ain't that simple. Wake up, man, wake up. But I suspect that you simply do not dare see the world in its true gray colors. But your self-righteousness seem so typical of many, not to say most, Americans. But then of course, it is a world-wide phenomenon. You're no worse than most other nations. Which is sad.

Colin Powell defined the acts as more than assaults upon America, but as assaults upon civilization.


He was correct.


By the way, were you replying to Chris Alger or Gil Scott? And why are people posting here so quick to find personal fault? It reminds me of talking to my (late) parents.

"And who has recommended the carpet bombing of Kabul?"


Was it some other "Jake" that wrote above that "I cherish the nuclear concept. Talk about your totally antiseptic cleansing . . . ." Not technically carpet bombing or Kabul, I suppose.


It's pretty obvious that the U.S. is on, as the lead editorial of this morning's NY Times puts it, a "collision course" with Afghanistan. It's also obvious that this will involve something more severe than cruise missiles at Bin Laden's camps (tried and failed). Why do you think that foreigners in Kabul are leaving in droves?


"Do you realize that you are in combat with a straw man?"


No, but only because I'm not sure what you're talking about, as I indicated in my first reply.


"Please, keep your fanciful attributions to yourself."


Was it the "bad" Jake who wrote above: "The completeness of the procedure is foremost, the precision secondary and coincidental. I want no one left alive to nurture, harbor or finance the terrorists. I want no one left alive to perform the terror."


I was talking about indiscriminate killing and genocide, but I guess you've narrowed it down to a few hundred million dead.


"Or do you seriously recommend doing nothing?"


No. I recommend that we have a national dialogue about our role in the world, the arguments for retaining or changing that role, whether and how our role in the world is related to the recent attacks, such as why terrorists chose us, now, instead of other Western powers, to vent their hatred. I prefer not to simply assume that the recent attacks are a case of the worst picking on the best and that an all-out war with whomever would be the opposite.