Chomsky takes down Hitchens

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Sat Oct 6 10:47:38 PDT 2001


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."

You are running together recklessness and negligence and accidental. Unforeseeable consequences, or anyway unforeseeable victims, are merely accidental. Doing something that has bad and unintended consquences that are unforeseeable is merely bad luck, not culpable. If a reasonable person would have known better, that means the victim was foreseeable, and I have been negligent. If the danger was foreseeable and known and I didn't care, I was reckless.
>
> >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.

Good.


>
> >
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.

You mean, hatred by Muslim fundamentalists? That's because the US supports Israel's occupation, sends troops into Saudoi, attacks, Iraq, etc., and the Soviets didn't. If the USSR had survived, they might have gotten some static because of their support for the Gulf War. There is some evidence that their atrocities in Chechnya have led to terrorist attacks in Moscow,if those were not provocations caused by the FSB (former KGB). .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.
>

Sure.

jks

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