You stated that I "also" failed to take recklessness into account. However, recklessness is the relevant distinction between "unintended" and "unforeseeable": in the case of the former, we sometimes believe that the agent should've "known better."
> Leaving aside the question about whether it is ethnocentric to call
Western
> values "Western," something I have done in print (as you know, Yoshie),
you
> are in the wrong neighborhood, Luke, if you think this is the hidey-hole
of
> the relativist pomo academic left who is afraid to criticize female
genital
> mutilation or whatever because it done by Other Cultures.
I never thought nor implied that.
> Anyway, I am a
> certain as I could be that the bin Ladans of this world would regard the
> "Western" habit of electing legislatures and enforcing due process in
> criminal procedure, etc. as a harmless if decadent heresy, not worth the
> expenditure of a single car bomb or suicide hijacker, if the Western
> democracies didn't keep invading and bombing the Mideast, supporting
> Israel's occupation and military adventures, and generally acting as if
our
> superior values gave us the right to ignore them whenever it conflicted
with
> the naked self-interest of our rulibg classes.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. I believe as you do that if the US had never set foot in the Middle East, the likelihood of an event comparable to 9-11 occurring would be miniscule. However, there appears to be a far greater hatred of American imperialism than the sort practiced by our former Soviet counterparts. Here's a very ethnocentric Atlantic article that argues thusly: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm
I don't think my point is all that controversial: the attacks cannot be understood only in the context of either Islamic extremism or US foreign policy. Some combination of the two is necessary.
-- Luke
> jks
>
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