9.12.2006
Tipping the Scales: Requiem 9/11/01
How much is enough? How can our thinly-veiled desire for vengeance, masquerading as justice, ever hope to vindicate the 3000 human lives, cruelly snuffed by acts of cowardice and desperation? We have long considered acts of terror perpetrated against civilians to be the ultimate evil, yet do we truly believe our enemies consider their acts any more or less “evil” than the indiscriminant bombing of Afghans, Iraqis, or Lebanese civilians? Where is the line drawn that determines what constitutes killing in the name of self defense, and killing in the name of a cause? Does our might make it right to kill as we see fit in order to force others to acquiesce? Is our idealology, our ethics, our morals, so much better than those of others, that we have the right to be judge, jury, and executioner of other cultures?
Nearly all nations have faced unprovoked attacks, and most have responded militarily as a matter of course, when do we start to question whether this response is absolutely necessary? There are those who would argue failure to respond in kind shows weakness, however, is it weakness to act better than our enemies? Is it weakness to measure our responses by whom it is, and why, we have been attacked? Is it wrong to build international support to counter threats of domestic and global terrorism? Is it wrong to expect action based on rationality rather than the same old “cowboy diplomacy?” Why should we wait for history to be the judge? Perhaps history can teach us something about why we are where we are today.
For the past 60 years, the United States has practiced a peculiar form of diplomacy around the world. For much of that time, our primary focus seemed to be in stopping the global spread of Soviet-communism. In this quest, we have allied ourselves with despots and tyrants, installed puppet governments, given out huge amounts of foreign aid, provided military training, weapons, and vehicles, and entered into any number of “black” arrangements where American moral and ethical standards were significantly undermined. While evidence is clearly available, we need only look back a mere 30 years to CIA money, weapons, and training, provided to Afghani rebels fighting a Soviet invasion. Some of this went to a group of rebels led by Osama Bin Laden himself. We provided similar support to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980’s, including providing Iraq with chemical munitions (thanks in great part to men like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield). We have long supported Israel in its great struggle for survival; surrounded on three sides by nation-states bent upon its total annihilation. To all these ends, we have supported and condoned, the use of WMD’s on civilian populations, we have stood by as men, women, and children were brutalized, tortured, and killed, and we allowed ourselves the luxury of believing we were somehow part of the “…greater good.” But were we?
If we truly believe the taking of innocent lives to be evil, then how can we allow ourselves to be associated with it? How can we justify to our children that what we did was “more right” than what was done to us on 9/11? By what twist of words and “spin” can we continue to condone the slaughter of millions of innocent human lives around the world because a mere 3,000 of them were taken from us on one tragic and horrific day? How can we hope to build a better future, one with peace and prosperity for all humankind when in our grief, we condone the destruction of others? We cannot continue to live a lie. We cannot honor the memory of our loved ones, taken from us by those without remorse, by allowing our government to sanction the taking of more loved ones from others, the price is too high. There is no way to balance the scales through slaughter. We cannot justify our own acts of evil against others because evil was done to us. Either we are better than our enemies, or we become just like them.
"A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government."
-Edward Abbey
©J.S.Brown 2004-2006
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Nearly all nations have faced unprovoked attacks, and most have responded militarily as a matter of course, when do we start to question whether this response is absolutely necessary? There are those who would argue failure to respond in kind shows weakness, however, is it weakness to act better than our enemies? Is it weakness to measure our responses by whom it is, and why, we have been attacked? Is it wrong to build international support to counter threats of domestic and global terrorism? Is it wrong to expect action based on rationality rather than the same old “cowboy diplomacy?” Why should we wait for history to be the judge? Perhaps history can teach us something about why we are where we are today.
For the past 60 years, the United States has practiced a peculiar form of diplomacy around the world. For much of that time, our primary focus seemed to be in stopping the global spread of Soviet-communism. In this quest, we have allied ourselves with despots and tyrants, installed puppet governments, given out huge amounts of foreign aid, provided military training, weapons, and vehicles, and entered into any number of “black” arrangements where American moral and ethical standards were significantly undermined. While evidence is clearly available, we need only look back a mere 30 years to CIA money, weapons, and training, provided to Afghani rebels fighting a Soviet invasion. Some of this went to a group of rebels led by Osama Bin Laden himself. We provided similar support to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980’s, including providing Iraq with chemical munitions (thanks in great part to men like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield). We have long supported Israel in its great struggle for survival; surrounded on three sides by nation-states bent upon its total annihilation. To all these ends, we have supported and condoned, the use of WMD’s on civilian populations, we have stood by as men, women, and children were brutalized, tortured, and killed, and we allowed ourselves the luxury of believing we were somehow part of the “…greater good.” But were we?
If we truly believe the taking of innocent lives to be evil, then how can we allow ourselves to be associated with it? How can we justify to our children that what we did was “more right” than what was done to us on 9/11? By what twist of words and “spin” can we continue to condone the slaughter of millions of innocent human lives around the world because a mere 3,000 of them were taken from us on one tragic and horrific day? How can we hope to build a better future, one with peace and prosperity for all humankind when in our grief, we condone the destruction of others? We cannot continue to live a lie. We cannot honor the memory of our loved ones, taken from us by those without remorse, by allowing our government to sanction the taking of more loved ones from others, the price is too high. There is no way to balance the scales through slaughter. We cannot justify our own acts of evil against others because evil was done to us. Either we are better than our enemies, or we become just like them.
"A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government."
-Edward Abbey
TANSTAAFL!
©J.S.Brown 2004-2006
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