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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CountofMoneyCristo who wrote (6102)	10/19/2001 10:53:47 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

I think the difficulty with Prince Alaweed and others is partly due to faulty thinking but partly due to semantics. We know what bin Laden says is his motivation - and I think it's fair to rely partly on his statements - and he does state that he is motivated, in part, by Israel/Palestine. He states that he wants all Western influence out of Islamic countries - and the United States is Western and so is Israel - I assume that this statement by him of his motivation is accurate, but incomplete. We can all agree that Israel/Palestine is "a problem" - really a multitude of problems - and that there are many Muslims who are angry at the US for supporting Israel. The problem comes when one stops treating bin Laden's motivation as something personal to him and his followers, something which is completely unacceptable, and treats it as a cause, as justification, as a legitimate explanation for his behavior. It may have a philosophical/linguistic root that can't be gotten around. Even here in the West, there are some who look to social causes to explain crime. If a man commits murder for money, you and I and Rudy Giuliani would not blame society because the man wants or even needs money. There are some who would. Similarly, if a man committed murder of uninvolved third parties as a way of showing his displeasure about a political situation, you and I and Rudy Giuliani would not blame society for the political situation. There are some who would. A lot of them have been sounding off in the newspapers, and on SI, people from all over the world. Terrorism has been treated as semi-legitimate political expression for decades. People say "oh, I don't agree with their tactics but I understand their frustration." Prince Alaweed isn't the first - he's saying the same thing many people are saying, some of them very educated and holding responsible positions in society. The difference between the Prince and the others is that most of them are too well-brought-up to say it at the funeral of the victims. You and I and Rudy Giuliani would say - "killing innocent third parties is not semi-legitimate political expression - period." We have to speak out against those who romanticize and apologize for and make excuses for terrorists. Maybe the best way for us in civil society to begin is to marginalize everyone who apologizes for terrorists until it's no more socially acceptable than racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, Nazism, and the like - drive them out of mainstream media. If we write letters to the editors of newspapers and to the producers of TV shows expressing our outrage, maybe we can accomplish this.