<And BTW, Jacob, they want to kill you, also.>
Yes, "they" do. "They" being the demonized Other, our subhuman enemies who are beyond the Pale, outside all law, outside all covenants.
If I were to go hitch-hiking through Iraq (as a suicidally stupid Japanese man did recently), I'd likely lose my head (as he did).
Once upon a time, an American (businessman, hitchhiker, vacationer, whatever) could wander the world freely, without fear, without hiding the fact of his nationality. Today, Americans abroad are best advised, to pretend to be Canadians. Or live in fortified compounds. Or have an armed escort. Or just stay home. For this, too, I blame the militarists who have transformed Jefferson's republic into an American Empire.
Of course "they" want to kill us. "They" are just like us. They, too, are tribalists who assign zero value to the lives of foreigners. They, too, can whip themselves into a fury and demand EyeForEye vengeance, for real or imagined wrongs. They, too, have trouble telling the differences between different kinds of foreigners. And of course, they (just like us) never turn the other cheek, never forgive anything, never return love for hate. "They" aren't Christians, either.
Let's do a quick body count:
about 3000 prisoners stuffed into containers
(at Mazar-e-sharif in late 2001, by Dostum's militia and U.S. Special Forces. This, by itself, was blood vengeance for 9/11.)
at least 100,000 excess deaths caused by Operation Iraq Freedom,
(per the most prestigious medical journal on earth.)
at least 10,000 other Afghan deaths
a thousand here, a hundred there, hard to keep track of it all...
So, using our own rules, using exactly the same code of conduct by which we justify ourselves, we've given them plenty of good reasons to keep killing us. If "they" are following EyeForEye strict reciprocity, "they" need to do about 40 more 9/11-scale attacks, just to catch up with the killing we've done since then.
And, today, we are using artillery and airstrikes to level Fallujah. When we're done, there won't be an undamaged building in the city. The results so far:
1. the main Sunni political party has withdrawn from the elections we're staging.
2. the Iraqi Sunni clerics have also called for an election boycott.
3. A group of Saudi clerics has called for armed resistance to the Iraqi occupation. And the Saudi government hasn't silenced them, signalling that Saudi Arabia is going to continue to be a safe haven for the Islamists, where they can fundraise, arm, train, spread propaganda, and the government will look the other way.
re: am I a pacifist?
Answer:
The myth of redemptive violence:
Message 20727523
GodBlessMongoliaAndArgentina |
