Well, if you read the Glover book I keep recommending, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, you will see that the Taliban is really right in line with their predecessors--others who perpetrated war, torture & atrocity.
I do feel we're in a new era of history because of two things: one, nations are no longer geogrpahically bounded, as I said. It's a global community, and the internet has hastened that. So we have to redefine the word nation. And secondly, some very dangerous technology may be in the hands of those who, becaues they are not physically, geographically, int he old fashioned sense, a nation, can weild it without fear of retribution. Countries will go to war if they have a decent chance of winning, but they won't initiate a war if their entire country is going to be nuked. But the word nation no longer works. I do think its a new era. |
